


The Difference between the Sea and the Sky

by bagog



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Custom Commander Shepard, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect 3: Citadel, Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut, Mass Effect 3: Leviathan, Post-Canon, Post-Mass Effect 3, Post-War, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-04-01 18:21:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 62
Words: 312,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4029967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bagog/pseuds/bagog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Commander Shepard is a legend: First Human Spectre, Hero of the Citadel, Savior of the Galaxy. In the middle of the war, he finds he'd rather be less legend and more human. Stealing time between missions to build a relationship, neither he nor Kaidan can imagine how much their time together will affect the course of the war. But, only a legend can save the galaxy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Difference between a Sanity Check and a First Date

**Author's Note:**

> This story is designed to fill in the gaps in Kaidan and Shepard's relationship, to give them the breathing room you can't really feature in the game. Pretty much every chapter represents time between missions or after a cutscene.... but its own story begins to unfold, meanwhile. You could play along, if you wished? Begins halfway through ME3 and the end of the game will represent about the halfway point in the story. Nothing that happens on screen will be featured in the story, so it sorta relies on you knowing the score. 
> 
> You could play along with this story?! Each chapter is informed or "informs" what happens in between chapters. You can look at the basic instructions [here](http://imgur.com/a/zkYK7).
> 
> While this thing's gonna pick up a lot of steam in telling it's own tale, just about any chapter may be taken in isolation as a self-contained morsel of mshenko magic. Until around Chapter 40. Fingers crossed, anyway.
> 
> The story is DONE and I'll be posting chapters as they're beta'd, at least two a week! 
> 
> Special thanks to [stonelions](http://stonelions.tumblr.com/) for bringing Ben to life with ART in Chapter 2 and Chapter 61! Stonelions' art is what made me want to write this thing at all, so I'm totally thrilled! You just... do not pass up a chance to commission stonelions. 
> 
> Special thanks also to [OpalLight](http://opallight.tumblr.com/) for ARTING UP Chapter 4 and Chapter 23!! The style is great and totally captures the mood!
> 
> Special thanks are also in order to [potionsmaster](http://archiveofourown.org/users/potionsmaster/pseuds/potionsmaster/) and [Michael_Ackart](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Michael_Ackart/pseuds/Michael_Ackart) for beta-reading this monstrosity.

“What did you call it? A sanity check?”

“Mm. Sanity check.”

The two men lapsed into silence, smiling broadly. Kaidan drummed his fingers on the table, focused on a black plume of smoke drifting out of one of the lower levels of the Presidium commons, up and through the artificial sky.

That ribbon of clouded blue bathed the Presidium in a perpetual afternoon, but for the six hour night cycle to give the dignitaries and high-profile merchants a sense of the passing of time. Shepard had spent the last several hours in the dusk glow of the ward arms, his usual habit. But on the rare occasion Kaidan actuallydisembarked at the Citadel, he stayed up in the Presidium among the familiar earth trees, the blue sky.

People coming up from the wards into the Presidium often reported a sense of lost time—night to daylight in a short taxi ride. But there was more to it, too: there was a pulse beneath the streets in the wards. In the Presidium, things had always been loping. Slow.

Now, after the Cerberus coup, people seemed to scuttle from shop to shop, they were tentative. Nervous. Nothing like this had ever happened before. The black plumes of smoke were a sure reminder of that.

“Hope you weren’t waiting long,” Ben said as the silence stretched on. He was feeling the table-top, flat palm taking in the tactile sensation of the alien alloy. The more he touched, the more he heard, the more he saw and tasted, the more he could anticipate. He could deliver the right pleasantries and ask the right questions to make people open up. There was a pulse in him: touch everything, see everything, ask everything.

“Hm? Oh. No. No, I got here kinda early. Wanted to get my thoughts together.” Kaidan’s smile was shy, and he was maybe taking in Shepard’s face a little more than he was looking him in the eye. “Guess I… uh… ran outta things to say. Didn’t plan for much after that first part, y’know? Feel kinda like a giddy schoolboy just… talking about us the whole meal.”

Another pause. A little longer. More charged.

Night to day: Shepard had met Kaidan for lunch, laid out the usual pleasantries. Offered his ear to Kaidan’s problems. And then? _“I guess what I really want is something… deeper. With someone I already… care about.”_ Like night to day, complete with the recognition of all that lost time.

Shepard had asked twice for clarification. Hard-coding new data. Kaidan wanted Shepard. There was no mistake. Careful, thoughtful Kaidan Alenko didn’t even hesitate.

 “Hard to look at the Presidium the same way after the Cerberus invasion,” Shepard said, not meeting Kaidan’s eye, watching a separate dark billow of smoke to his left.

“I guess they’ll get it all repaired soon enough, then the Council will pretend like it never happened.” Kaidan sighed. His posture had been shifting anxiously since Shepard had smiled at him, told him _‘You and me… I like that. A lot.’_

“You really think they can pull that off?” Shepard chuckled, thumb idly scratching at a stain on the table edge.

The look in Kaidan’s eye was playful, but weary when he responded, “I was here for a while during the rebuilding after you—well. While they were rebuilding after Saren’s attack. Once the rubble was cleared people were happy to forget all about it. Still, for me it’ll never be the same as when you, me, and Ash stepped off the Normandy for the first time. I’ve seen too much happen here.”

Kaidan smile had become forced at the recollection, and Shepard and he both resumed watching the dark clouds snake out of the shops below. It was as if each was looking at the Presidium for the first time, or perhaps felt so far into new and nervous territory that staring at something familiar was the only anchor. In the silence, Shepard stretched his leg out under the table, wincing from the hip. Kaidan noticed, looked away quickly when Shepard glanced back up at him.

“I guess I’m sorry I brought it up,” Shepard said gently. Kaidan might’ve replied, but the salarian waiter approached.

“Two whiskeys, neat?” Each ‘shot’ of whiskey was enormous: at least four fingers.

“That’s us.” Kaidan’s smile was professional, “And hey, we didn’t see this on the menu, but do you have anything like a Canadian lager?”

The waiter stared at Kaidan and blinked twice.

“Beer? Canadian lager is beer,” Shepard supplied.

“…Ah. Beers. Yes, ummm. We have something called ‘IPA?’”

Shepard threw a glance at Kaidan whose mouth twisted into a wry smile.

“I guess I’ll take what I can get. Two of those,” Kaidan said. The waiter gave a stilted nod, mumbled that they could expect their food any moment, then padded off. “Actually, I suppose I didn’t check to see if you wanted a beer after all.”

Shepard laughed and lifted his whiskey, “Five minutes into our first date, and you already know my order, I’m starting to like this even more.” He smiled warmly at last and Kaidan raised his glass in response.

 “No way this can be our first date, Shepard.” Kaidan smirked over the rim of his whiskey, “This is our sanity check, remember?”

“Remind me of the difference?” He took a sip.

“You’ve got to already know you’re sane to go on a date with somebody.”

“Uh oh.” Shepard smiled, licking a droplet of whiskey from his lip, “You think we’re good to try, then?”

“Yeah, Shepard. We’re good.”

They held each other’s gaze, took a long drink.

Two plates clattered onto the table as the waiter returned.

“Two steak sandwiches?” He asked, glassy eyes impassive.

“Yeah, that’s us.” Kaidan answered, clearing his throat, cast a look at Shepard through another sip of whiskey before carefully setting down his glass to pull his plate in.

A moment later another waiter appeared with two opened bottles of beer and a caddy full of various steak sauces.

“Great, hot sauce,” Shepard beamed, setting his whiskey down and selecting a squat bottle of sauce out of the caddy. He opened his sandwich and began pouring the thick sauce in globs onto the meat, grabbing his table knife to shovel the goop out, oblivious as Kaidan scowled at the bottle, pulling the tooth-pick out of his own sandwich.

“Just what do you think you’re doing, Shepard?”

Shepard looked up shyly, his knife still rattling inside the bottle to coax out more of the sauce, “What’s wrong with this?”

“Hot sauce? Really?” Kaidan took a long sip of his whiskey.

“Hot sauce on steak is… bad?” Shepard’s eyebrows scrunched together, as if his brain was hard-coding new data. He rested the bottle back on the table, carefully replacing the bun without breaking eye-contact with Kaidan.

“You can hardly taste the meat under all that tomato sludge.” Kaidan shook his head, raising his sandwich and exaggeratedly rolling his shoulders back. Shepard grinned.

“Considering this stuff is bottled on Omega, I doubt there’s anything like a tomato in it.”

“It dishonors the cow that gave its life for your dinner.” Kaidan bit into his sandwich with vigor, but after chewing for a moment the smile slid from his face. Swallowing, he sighed and reached for the squat bottle by Shepard’s plate, knife still standing upright from its neck. “Then again, that’s what I would say if this was actually beef. What is this stuff? Is it really hot?”

“It’s spicy. The food on Omega doesn’t have much flavor.”

“I remember. Still…” he shook his head, resting his sandwich on the very edge of the plate so he wouldn’t have to dig his fingers underneath the bun to get a grip again.

“I never knew you’d visited Omega, Kaidan.” Shepard paused as he picked up the sandwich, regarding Kaidan over the top bun.

“Not something I ever brought up.” Kaidan stirred the sauce, “Not a story worth telling, really.”

“What? Even after I ‘buttered you up’ with steak?” He smirked, biting into his sandwich.

“Varren steak doesn’t count, Shepard. Or… or whatever this is. Besides, I never made it up to Aria’s couch or anything, I’m sure any stories you have from Omega trump mine by a long shot. Wouldn’t impress you.”

“I think I’d like to be the judge of what impresses me.” Shepard grinned, his eyebrow raising slyly. Kaidan didn’t look up, but there was a pull at the corner of his lips when he finally opened his sandwich.

“Well if this stuff impresses you, maybe I have a shot after all,” Kaidan read the bottle’s label. The sauce was called Blue Bitch, and had a caricature of a cantankerous asari standing, one leg up, on a heap of krogan, X’s in their eyes. Naturally, the sauce was cobalt blue and sparkled slightly. Kaidan used Shepard’s knife to spread a thin layer on his sandwich, “It looks like toothpaste.”

Shepard smiled as he watched Kaidan replace his bun, roll his shoulders back again as he lifted the sandwich, and take two jumbo bites.

“Well?”

“Well… it’s uh…”

“Hot?”

“Yeah. Hot. Err… spicy,” Kaidan grabbed his beer for a swig.

“Too hot for your delicate Canadian palate?”

“Ha! In your dreams, Shepard!” He coughed a bit holding his sandwich off to one side, took another long gulp of beer before setting it down.

 “Just trying to look out for you, Major. Can’t lose my second in command to hot sauce.” With the grin on his face, Shepard could only nibble at the edge of his bun. Kaidan took a double swallow of his drink, huffing out a whiskey-thick breath. “Especially not before I get to enjoy some of those ‘benefits’ you mentioned.”

Kaidan’s raised a thick brow, eyes twinkling. “Don’t worry about me, _Commander_ , I’ve been through worse than hot sauce,” He took another huge bite of his sandwich, a fleck of the blue sauce left on next to his mouth.

“Kaidan you’ve, uh, you’ve got some sauce…” Shepard pantomimed brushing the sauce off of his own face with one hand. Kaidan was wide-eyed innocent, licked all the way around his lips, his tongue coming short of catching the speck. “No, you might need a napkin,” Kaidan held Shepard’s stare and brushed his napkin on the wrong side of his face “Other side.” Kaidan wiped too low, eyes narrowing “Little higher. Here, pretend I’m your mirror…” too high, Shepard set down his sandwich. “Here let me just—“

Shepard raised his hand to Kaidan’s face, using his thumb to brush the corner of Kaidan’s lips. That moment, Kaidan turned his head, catching Shepard’s thumb in his lips, kissing the sauce off of Shepard’s finger with a smack.  
  
“There, got it.” Kaidan smiled slyly up at Shepard, who had fallen back into his chair with a gravelly chuckle. Night to day again. While the scuttle of the Presidium carried on around them, Shepard’s gaze was now anchored in Kaidan’s.

“Well,” Shepard ran his thumb along the porous edge of his plate, face reddening, “you said you wanted a chance to practice your flirting. Glad to see you seizing the opportunity.”

“As if you’re not getting your turn, Commander!” Kaidan laughed, ears turning pink, “With all that ‘too hot for you’ business! You practically dared me.”  
  
“That… that wasn’t flirting!” Shepard tried to regain his composure, elbows up on the table, “I was talking about the hot sauce, any… thing else you imagined… must have been your imagination. I figure you must be pretty used to dull food.”

“We’re a very passionate people, Shepard.” Kaidan shot back, a glint in his eye, “You think I’d take a chance on a handsome crackpot like you if I didn’t have an adventurous streak?”

Shepard’s mouth hung open for a second, then he leaned back laughing, brushing his hand across his brow, touching the fabric on his uniform.

“And here I was trying to make small talk about the Presidium,” Shepard chuckled.

“Yeah,” Kaidan said, taking a bite and swallowing, “I guess feeling like a giddy school-boy isn’t such a bad thing.”

His voice was low and rusted, and Shepard crossed his arms in front of him on the table, pushing his plate back to lean in.

“I think I’d like to see this adventurous streak…” he mimicked Kaidan’s tone, “as long as your idea of adventure goes beyond trying some hot sauce.”

“Mmhmm.” Kaidan set his own steak sandwich down, reached for his whiskey, “Adventurous enough to listen to _your_ come-ons.” He brought the glass to his lips, dark eyes over dark whiskey.  
  
“I don’t need practice. Haven’t you heard? I’m Commander Shepard,” he quirked an eyebrow.  
  
“Oh, you’re a natural alright, what with all that ‘maybe you’ve gotten better with age’ business back at Huerta”

“That wasn’t flirting either!” Shepard’s face went blank again, hard-coding new data, “It was… trying to encourage a fellow soldier.” He tried a smile.

Kaidan folded his arms across his chest and belted a laugh,

“No way! That was absolutely flirting! Wouldn’t have had the nerve to ask you here today if I hadn’t made up my mind about that. You can’t take it back now, Shepard.”

“Well… I don’t think I was trying to flirt,” Shepard shifted awkwardly, picked his sandwich back up with one hand.

“Maybe you just don’t know yourself so well after all, huh?” Kaidan leaned forward with a suggestive look in his eye, setting his glass down. “And maybe you could use more practice than you think.”

The blush had drained out of both men’s faces, and Shepard’s eyes narrowed to mirror the possessive look Kaidan cast. Before the meat could fall out from the bun of his sandwich, he leaned forward onto his elbows, took a sloppy bite leaving hot sauce all around his mouth. He grinned through the halo of blue.

“Well in that case, I think I might need a return of the favor, Major.”

Kaidan’s eyes glinted with amusement for a moment. He carefully wiped his own mouth with his napkin and sipped at his whiskey before leaning forward, bringing the smell of the whiskey right up to Shepard’s face. They were almost touching, Shepard’s smile frozen in place, eyebrows raised.

Out of nowhere, Kaidan swept the napkin over Shepard’s mouth, cleaning off his face in a single stroke.

Shepard fell back in his chair with a gurgle of mock defeat and the corners of Kaidan’s eyes crinkled as his snicker turned into full-blown laughter.

“Now you’re just teasing!” Shepard sighed as his laughter finally subsided.

“Well Shepard,” Kaidan chuckled, face flush with all the laughing, “the first time we kiss it’s not gonna be with Blue Bitch on our lips.”

“I can live with that,” Shepard’s smile smoldered.

“Mm, I don’t really start playing with… additives,” Kaidan’s eyebrow raised, “until the fourth date.”

“Is that right?” he said, breath hitched beneath his grin.

Kaidan swallowed before nodding, his body leaning casually on the table, but every muscle taught.

“Well… with that delicate Canadian palate of yours, that much Blue Bitch might just put you back in the hospital.”

Kaidan rolled his eyes, chuckling against the tension that had been building in his shoulders since he’d brought up a first kiss.

“Very funny, Shepard. But, a low blow. I’m so glad to be out of that place. Honestly, I think if I never see the inside of Huerta Memorial ever again it’ll be too soon.”

“I know what you mean.”

“What? You weren’t the one cooped up in there for so long!”

“Well in case you forgot, I visited you there plenty of times. If watching that mech bash you into the side of a shuttle was bad, watching you lie comatose on a bed in a hospital full of war-wounded soldiers—every one with better chances than you—was worse.”  
  
“…oh.” Kaidan’s eyes softened.

“And then once you woke up, wondering if you could trust me again.” Shepard shrugged, setting down his sandwich. His smile hadn’t wavered, just dulled somehow.

“Wondering if I was going to what?”

“Seeing a Cerberus mech that for all intents and purposes looked just like a real person? I didn’t think it would help my chances of convincing you that I’m the real Benjamin Shepard.”

Kaidan dabbed at a leaking corner of his sandwich with a french fry.

“I guess I was pretty paranoid, huh?”

“I didn’t mean it to come across that way,” Shepard hurried, “I asked you to trust in me, but I never gave you much to go on. After Earth, with everything happening on Mars… after Palaven. It felt awful to be fighting you too.”

“Hmm,” Kaidan pulled the knife out of the bottle of hot sauce, scraped it along the top of his bun, closed the lid, “Yeah…” His expression turned stony, eyebrows scrunching close, as if the table were a mystery he needed to solve at once.

“I know that look,” Shepard made a lop-sided smile and tried to swallow, “What’re you thinking?”

Kaidan laughed, scooted to the back of his chair and rested his elbow on the table.

“It means a lot, hearing you say all that Shepard, it’s nice to hear you open up a little bit.”

“I’m an open book.” Shepard shifted to the edge of his seat, arms crossed in front of him.

“You say that like you expect me to believe it,” Kaidan snickered. “Sure, I can read you on the battle-field pretty well, and when it comes to the _mission_ you might be an open book. But when it comes to you?”

“…there’s not much interesting to me, Kaidan.” Shepard cast his eyes to the side.

“Well, why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” he said with a coy smile. Their elbows touched and Shepard shook his head.

“You’re a hell of a flirt, Major,” Shepard returned the look. He touched the lip of his whiskey glass, running a finger along the smooth rim.

“Had plenty of time to plan out all my cheesy one liners. It was a _very_ long hospital stay.” Kaidan left their arms touching, picked up and downed the last finger of whiskey.

“If I’d known you came so well equipped, I would’ve prepared myself!”

“Something tells me you’re never unprepared, Shepard,” Kaidan’s voice resonated in his empty whiskey glass before setting it down and picking at his fries.

“That’s,” Shepard looked off to the side, “Not exactly true, all the time.”

Kaidan grinned, biting into three fries at a time.

“At any rate,” he said, holding another fry, “it really means a lot that you agreed to meet me here today. I know you’re a busy guy, and with the war. Can’t help thinking I’m taking you away from something important.”

“This is important,” Shepard said simply, blinking. Kaidan blinked back as the corner of his lip twitched into a smile.

“Uh… heh, then, I’m sorry to take you away from the war effort. What, uh…” his hand almost brushed Shepard’s on the table, “what did you have planned for this afternoon?”

Shepard had glanced down at his own twisted fingers on the table next to Kaidan’s, spoke softly when he met Kaidan’s eyes.

“Got word from Hackett. There’s a Dr. Bryson on the Citadel,” he picked up a fry, chewing as he continued, “Something about the ‘Leviathan project.’”

“Sounds exotic, what is it?”

“I’ll send you the briefing. I won’t know much till I talk to him. Some kind of creature, maybe? Hackett thinks it’s some kind of Reaper killer.”

Kaidan’s eyes got wide, “A Reaper killer? That’s… can you even imagine? Who would’ve thought?”

“You sound more excited about it than Hackett did.” Shepard said swallowing another fry.

“I like learning new things,” Kaidan said, dabbed greasy fingers on his napkin, took a sip of his beer. “It’s crazy to think, even with everything on the line, that we’re still… finding out there’s more to the galaxy. It’s humbling.”

“Yeah? I suppose I was just thinking of it as a way to help us win this war. A way to survive.”

The artificial sky wheeled by slowly overhead, false clouds casting no shadows on the white shops and plazas below. The fountains and pools far below the Apollo’s balcony reflected the blue and white projection back up.

“I hear you. Still.” Kaidan shrugged mildly, “So are you heading over after lunch?”

He had one eyebrow quirked, and the even light from the artificial Presidium sunlight almost washed out the crease of his forehead when he asked.

“No. I figured I’d be busy all afternoon…”

“Busy?”

Shepard motioned to their table, to the café, pointed back and forth between himself and Kaidan with a smile. Kaidan laughed so hard he slapped the table.

“So I cleared your whole schedule? I’m flattered.” He leaned his elbows back on the table, settled his head on his folded hands, “I think this is going to work out just fine after all.”

“When I decided I would see Dr. Bryson later… I was afraid this might be a… longer conversation,” Shepard admitted, raising his beer to his lips.

“What? Thought I was going to grill you about Cerberus again?”

“Every mission we face them, I worry.”

“Shepard,” Kaidan scooched to the edge of his seat, eyebrows knitting together, “I told you that I’m never gonna doubt you again. I hope I made that clear with… with this. With us. I want this Shepard.”

“I do too,” Shepard said quietly, “I’ve just spent a lot of time trying to make things right between us after Horizon. It felt strange how much thought I was devoting to ways to convince you I was still me.”

Kaidan’s hand closed around Shepard’s, his expression softening, “I guess you didn’t need to worry.”

“I guess I didn’t.”

Finishing their steak sandwiches would take two hands, so their fingers untangled and their gazes again returned to the plumes of black smoke rising up all around the Presidium Commons, long black tendrils winding around an otherwise perfect afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter follows directly after.


	2. The Difference between Bad Times and Hard Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard and Kaidan head back to the ship. Now that they're officially dating, Kaidan's determined to get Shepard to talk about himself for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!

The two Spectres stood, still laughing, in the Normandy’s airlock as the scan and decon protocols activated with a whir. The airlock was always hot and muggy, comforting for a moment compared to the cold of the docking bay, but only for a moment. The inner-doors slid open and the two on-duty operations petty officers looked up as the two highest ranking officers on the ship all but tumbled out in fits of laughter.

There was barely enough room to walk two abreast down the gangway to the CIC, and Kaidan and Shepard’s shoulders bumped as they made it happen anyway, both men focusing on their feet to avoid stumbling into a work station. Their breath still thick with the smell of the now—by this point in their evening—famous Apollo’s ‘shot’ of whiskey.

But by the time they rounded the situation holo, Shepard’s shoulders had squared off, the warm smile calcifying into one of martial reassurance. He slid his hand along the control panels circling the holo, and his steps became even, purposeful—as if the ship and his mission were seeping back into him through his fingertips. On his own ship, he was transforming back into ‘Commander’ Shepard. Their sanity check was clearly over.

Kaidan himself grew quiet too, his posture stiffening each time his arm bumped against Shepard’s as they waited for the lift. Still, as Shepard and he stepped onto the elevator together, a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth when Shepard instinctively hit the button to take the lift to the top of the ship.

“Y’know, almost two weeks on this bird and I’m just now realizing just how much it’s like the original Normandy. And, I guess, figuring out all the ways it isn’t,” he sighed.

“I know what you mean, sometimes I look up from the Galaxy Map and forget I’m on a different ship.” Shepard’s stance was boot-camp stiff; even as he stretched his back, he was a soldier from head to toe. No more elbows on tables. No more blushing.

“Still, must be nice having the whole top deck to yourself, huh?”

Shepard’s eyes darted to the doors, which spread open onto the door to his cabin, then back to Kaidan. Kaidan smiled and stepped forward, leading Shepard out of the lift. They entered the room.

“Big place,” Kaidan surveyed the whole room, but his eyes seemed to linger on the aquarium in the wall.

“Cerberus doesn’t really do subtle when it comes to officer’s quarters. You should see the Illusive Man’s office,” Shepard said.

“Can’t wait to see it: through the scope on my rifle,” he murmured, the gravel of the thought caught in his throat.

“And you will. Still, you can’t deny their sense of aesthetics.” Shepard punched the interface on his console, checking the messages as he unbuttoned his uniform shirt, slid it off his shoulders. He absentmindedly touched his collar, taking the fabric of the soft under-shirt between his fingers while his eyes scanned his daily briefings.  
  
“I’ll say. I guess probably you didn’t have a fish tank in your quarters on the SR-1, huh?” Kaidan stood by, giving his attention to the model case, arms crossed and shifting his weight onto one leg.  
  
“You know better than that, Kaidan,” Shepard chuckled. He left his uniform shirt on the back of the desk-chair, pulled the hem of his white undershirt out of his slacks.  
  
“How would I, Shepard? Not like _I_ got promoted to command and got to move into the captain’s quarters.”

“Now that you’re a Spectre, maybe I’ll hand the Normandy over to you?” Shepard motioned the Major down to the sofa, but Kaidan held up a hand as he inspected a particularly detailed replica of Sovereign.

“I don’t think I could handle everyone calling me ‘Captain’. Say, does having this Reaper model in your cabin ever keep you up at night?”

“The opposite. I just have to think about Sovereign blowing to pieces and I sleep like a baby.”

“Surprised you have time to sleep between saving the galaxy and assembling all these little ships.”

“There was a lot of down-time on the Collector mission while mining resources…” He sat on the sofa.

“The Collectors. Mm.” Kaidan surveyed the clutter on top of Shepard’s desk, avoiding Shepard’s eye when he finally stepped down into the living area. Shepard slid back a bit on the couch, but Kaidan didn’t sit yet, looking once again at the model case, arms folded.

“There she is,” he tapped the glass outside the model of the Normandy SR-1, “it’s good to see her like this.”

“Helluva ship.”

“With a crew to match.”

“Been fortunate.” Shepard nodded, sitting a little too stiff, relaxing back when Kaidan turned to him, then inching to the edge as Kaidan turned back to watch the fish.

“Almost feels lonely on the SR-2, skeleton crew, bigger ship. Felt like you were sardines on the old ship. Heh, I’ve had nothing but planet-side assignments last few years. Feels good to be out in space again,” he stretched, his body arching back with a yawn, “But now that they’ve replaced my old work-station with a kitchen, I don’t know what to do with myself besides filling out all the Council paperwork. Making rounds during my duty shift.”

“I’m sure we could find something for you to do if you’re bored,” Shepard said in a low tone. He squinted in the low light, staring a bit at the way Kaidan’s back straightened. The silhouette of Kaidan against the blue of the fish tank shifted, bearing his weight on one foot: his thinking posture.

“Heh. Yeah.” Kaidan sighed, not taking the bait.

“Are… you going to tell me what’s on your mind?” Shepard asked, leaned his arms on his knees.

“I guess I thought a lot about the Normandy in the hospital, Shepard. Finally being here… well it felt like joining you on a different ship at first. But now? Now it feels real,” he shrugged, running a hand along the back of his neck, “I see Pressly on the bridge, I keep thinking I’ll find Cortez working on the Mako. Lot of memories on that ship, short of a time as we had with her. Feels like all the good memories all found their way into these bulkheads now. I’m just…” Kaidan scratched an ear, fingers tugging for a moment at the gray strands of hair at his temple.

“Just what, Kaidan?”

Kaidan turned to face Shepard, his eyes were tired again, but he was smiling.

“I’ve been pretty gung-ho, past few years. Getting a chance to look back makes you think about the good times… and the bad times. With the war, with… scientists investigating giant Reaper-killers… I just hope the bad times don’t get in these bulkheads too.”

“Bad times?” Shepard looked to the side, “I suppose we had our share of… _hard_ times.” He watched the way Kaidan’s weight shifted again.

“Hard times were driving through a blizzard on Noveria. Then I watched the hull of the Normandy crack in half like a fortune cookie on the monitor of an escape pod. Watched a console I had repaired that morning explode in Corporal Hadley’s face. I saw the engine core venting debris into orbit. I had nightmares for years that I had seen one of those pieces of debris kicking around trying to breathe. Wondered if I’d watched you die while expecting to hear your voice on the comms.” He forced out a curt laugh, his expression still, but daring. “Those are memories I’d like to leave on the old Normandy.”

“Yeah… okay… those were bad times.” Shepard stared at his boot, eased himself into the corner of the sofa. His fingers pressed into the plush of the couch, testing the give. But a moment later Kaidan sat down, their knees almost touching.

“Sorry to kill the mood like that, Shepard,” he offered softly at last. “It’s… hm. Sorry. Being here with you, in your cabin of all places…”

His shoulders were still straight, but he crossed his ankle over his knee and lay one arm on the back of the sofa. Shepard chuckled and scratched the side of his face where the stubble was growing in coarse.

“I guess I should have cleaned the place up a bit,” Shepard offered, then cleared the chuckle out of his throat.

“Heh.” Kaidan shrugged when he tried to keep his smile easy, “That’s… uh… that’s not what I meant. I’d been thinking about having that talk with you for weeks.”

“Weeks?” Shepard blinked.

“Yeah, sounded a whole lot better in my head.” Kaidan squeezed his eyes shut and sighed, “Guess I spent so much time planning it out, I didn’t think much about after. About this. Feeling pretty awkward.”

Kaidan breathed deeply, the action seemed to startle Shepard into taking a deep breath as well.

 “That’s alright, feels like forever since we’ve been able to talk like this.”

“Sure does,” Kaidan leaned back, back still stiff.

“I’ve missed it.”

“Me too, Shepard. More… well. More than I can say,” the fish tank hissed for a moment as the VI executed the auto-feed sequence. Kaidan smoothed his uniform shirt, used the motion to scooch closer to Shepard on the couch. “So what about you? Even back on the old ship you were pretty quiet about yourself. What’re you thinking about?”

“Oh,” his gaze traveled watched the way Kaidan’s leg crossed over the other, followed the length of his arm on the back of the sofa, “I guess I haven’t had much time to reflect on the past… two years with someone who shared the experiences with me.”

“So. Tell me about it. If you want.”

That broke Shepard’s concentration on the skin of Kaidan’s forearm. He shifted uneasily, his knee bumped Kaidan’s.

“People don’t really ask… I suppose no one’s ever debriefed me on that particular mission before.”

“Funny how much you rely on those official debriefings to make up your mind about a mission, huh?”

“Yeah. Even while I was under house arrest, everything was always about Cerberus.”

“Do you think it would help to talk about it?”

“Not sure there’s much to say,” Shepard cleared his throat, watched Kaidan’s face for reactions, “You know the situation as well as I do.”

“Well sure, Shepard,” Kaidan’s eyebrows went up, “But I don’t know… y’know. What happened. It was a pretty big deal for you. You almost died.”

“Yeah…”

“You just seem so calm about it, that’s all. Wanted to make sure you weren’t… I dunno. Repressing or something,” he leaned his head back against the wall and shifted his hips closer to where Shepard sat. Again, Shepard’s eyes lingered on Kaidan’s lips, down his chest, before he blinked and seemed to relax into the couch. His fingertips traced a soft line around a button on his uniform pocket.

“Well, I went to get Joker. The CIC was gone… I remember thinking that the ship… that all of us…” He stopped as Kaidan slid his arm behind Shepard’s shoulders, and when Kaidan touched his shoulder, Shepard stopped touching his uniform.  He caught Kaidan’s eye with a curious expression.

 “Just figure if I’m gonna hear this story, it’d be nice to have a physical reminder you’re still here,” Kaidan smirked, letting the weight of his arm settle around Shepard’s neck.

“Yeah... yeah, I think I can live with this,” Shepard smiled, but seemed to tense at the contact, again watching Kaidan’s body next to him, brow crinkled. Kaidan gave a shy smile and stroked a thumb over Shepard’s shoulder, fingertips spreading on the expanse his muscle. “Umm. So I knew right then that the Normandy was lost. I kept my mind on Joker, on saving the crew, getting to the escape pods. Three objectives. I got Joker out somehow, then…”

“…You broke his arm getting him out, you saved his life,” Kaidan said gently.

“I don’t know what happened after that very well. I remember trying to get to the evac shuttles, but then I was blasted free of the ship, and a piece of shrapnel cut through my O2 recycler. I tried getting it back in. I guess it doesn’t really matter much how hard you try, once it’s severed, it’s too late.”

“Were you scared?”

“…does it matter?” he answered flatly.

Kaidan shrugged one shoulder.

Shepard took a long time to answer.

“Yeah. I think I was. It’s hard to say what’s fear and what’s your body moving automatically to try to keep itself alive. I’d never had to face that situation before. I’ve always been able to survive.” Shepard trailed off, shifted uncomfortably.

“But before that, when the Collector ship first shot through the engines, when the whole mess lit on fire… were you scared?”

Shepard’s body tensed beneath Kaidan’s arm.

“It doesn’t matter, does it?” His eyes narrowed, tone rising, “Fear or no, people still died in that first surprise attack. Everyone else made it out alive.”

“When you were floating adrift, you said you weren’t sure if you were afraid or if it was just your body trying to stay alive. Is there a difference?”

“Fear is an emotion. Survival is an instinct,” Shepard rattled off.

“But is that the point of fear? To kick us into our survival instinct?” Kaidan mused, but kept his eyes on Shepard’s face. His brows were weighing down his expression, lips drawn into a thin line.

“What do you think,” Shepard said quietly after a minute.

“Maybe fear kicks things into focus? Sets off that survival instinct in us? I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately with the war.” He scratched along his leg, “Sometimes I wonder if I’m actually scared of the Reapers or just… trying to keep people safe, y’know?”

He turned to Shepard with an apologetic smile, squeezing his shoulder.

“So what you really want to know is ‘am I scared of the Reapers?’” Shepard asked. Another half shrug, “Yeah. I was scared. Some of my crew were already dead, Joker was at risk, the enemy was unknown. I was powerless. I was afraid. I don’t like that. I don’t like not having options, choices I can work with.” Shepard arched his back to stretch an ache that had been building in his hip, easing back into Kaidan’s chest, “I guess I don’t like to dwell on thinking about my own fear.”

“I’ll never forget what you told me once: that talking about something like this isn’t a bad thing, it’s a good thing.”

“It ‘doesn’t make you a whiner, it makes you human,’” Shepard supplied, his eyes closing as his head rolled against Kaidan’s forearm.

Kaidan laughed. “Well, well… Good memory, Shepard. That conversation’s more than three years old.”

“Less than a year ago, for me,” Shepard said quietly. They breathed together for a moment before Kaidan rallied.

“Still,” he said softly into Shepard’s hair, “I don’t know many people who can remember quotes from bull sessions with their officers that morning.”

“Ha! I don’t talk to that many people.”

“You’re talking now.”

“Guess I’m just talking to the right person.”

“True.” He leaned in and Shepard, almost imperceptibly, shifted his weight towards Kaidan as well, a smile spreading across his face. “I’ve never seen you open up like this, Shepard. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to... well… to just hear the things you’re thinking about.”

“It’s different with you Kaidan, we’ve been through a lot. I trust you.” Shepard raised an eyebrow, leaning his shoulder into Kaidan’s.

“I feel the same. But I saw the way you were when we were down in the CIC. When you’re ‘the Commander,’ the way you talk changes, the way you act. Even alone up here, you’re different than you were at Apollo’s. More reserved. You’re great at asking questions, at comforting people when they need it, but as far as letting people know how you feel?”

“I don’t know about that. I don’t really feel like I’m acting any… differently, I guess there’s not a lot to say.”

Kaidan intertwined their fingers, and Shepard’s eyebrows knit together again.

“Yes there is.”

Shepard actually smiled at that. “I’d say you’re doing a pretty good job up here for not planning it out.” His voice was husky.

“Oh, am I?” Kaidan asked, wetting his lip with his tongue.

“Mhm.” Shepard rolled his shoulder under Kaidan’s arm, face pushing close to Kaidan’s, “I like having you up here. With me.”

“Yeah,” Kaidan breathed, “I like it too.”

“Makes me wish we’d done this sooner.”

“Me too. Also makes me wish I wasn’t the officer on deck tonight,” Kaidan said. Shepard frowned, craned his neck to check the clock at the bedside.

“Oh. Tonight?” He said flatly.

“Yeah. Every night this week.”

“Wish I hadn’t talked your ear off. Here I was looking forward to experiencing some of those benefits you were talking about,” he sighed.

“I’m glad we had this talk. It’s good to see a new side to you.” He lifted his arm away from Shepard’s shoulder and stood. “Besides, I think I’d like to take my time with you, Shepard.”

“If you think you could last.” He turned to Kaidan with a gleam in his eye. Kaidan guffawed as he stepped up the stairs.

“You seemed like you needed to warm up to the idea of you and me back at Apollo’s.” Kaidan rested his hands back on the railing.

“And _you_ were flirting pretty heavy.” Shepard rose up off the couch, strolled up to lean his hands on the bulkhead on either side of Kaidan’s head, “You seemed decisive then, _Major_. Why so hesitant now?” 

“Not hesitant,” Kaidan’s voice was low rumble, “Just, for the first time in a while, I don’t feel like I need to be in a rush, either.” He raised Shepard’s arm with a smirk and slipped up the stairs to the hatch, “So let’s take some time. Get to…” when Shepard followed him up, Kaidan brushed his fingers along the collar of his white undershirt, “to know each other. Warm up to the idea of… all this.”

“I want to make sure I get this right, but when it comes to sex?” Shepard said, the smile slipping from his face as he backed out the hatch before Kaidan. The smoldering look Kaidan turned to give him in the light of the hall made his voice come out hushed, “I don’t need any more ‘warming up’ to you.”

Shepard crossed his arms, leaned against the bulkhead, and Kaidan came in close, chest pressed into Shepard’s shoulder. When Shepard remained stiff and stoic against the wall, Kaidan’s smile turned possessive.

“Don’t worry,” his voice was thick, eyes locked on Shepard’s as their noses bumped, each turning their heads until their faces fit together, “I’m not about wasting time anymore, either. Not with the galaxy coming down around us.”

Shepard turned his body, Kaidan using the motion to press his chest into Shepard’s, hand resting over Shepard’s heart.

“What?” Shepard breathed, arching up to let Kaidan’s arm pull him in around the waist, “Finally convinced I’m actually alive?”

Kaidan’s hand on his chest slid up to gently caress his neck.

“Yeah. You’re alive, alright,” Kaidan murmured softly against Shepard’s cheek.

Shepard turned his head, taking Kaidan’s face between his palms as their lips met. The kiss was tender, Kaidan’s lips pressed into Ben’s as if testing their own strength against Shepard’s eagerness. When they both opened their mouths—locked together breathless—everything tentative about the way they held each other became impatient, immediate.

A shaky breath escaped from Kaidan when he pulled back a moment before they crashed together again.

Kaidan accepted Shepard’s parting flurry of small kisses with a grin as he leaned back, and Shepard loosened his grip on Kaidan’s uniform.

“Goodnight, Shepard. I had a great time.”

“Goodnight, Kaidan.”

Kaidan backed over the elevator threshold, giving Shepard one last school-boy grin, and the elevator closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter:
> 
> After N7: Cerberus Fighter Base
> 
> Shepard's body is sorta a wreck, Kaidan and Shepard allow themselves to think about the future for a brief moment.


	3. The Difference between Plans and Objectives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These days, there really hasn't been much time to talk about the future. With the war escalating, there won't be much time later, either. But for tonight, Shepard and Kaidan think about life after the war.

There was a muted hiss when Shepard cracked the seal on his armor, removing the chest piece and slipping his arms out of the shoulder straps, letting the back clatter to the shuttle-bay floor. Garrus, as usual, had headed directly to the mess for a snack before returning to the forward cannon still in armor, leaving Shepard and Kaidan to change at their lockers alone. Shepard tore open the seal on his thick thermal layer all the way down to his waist, sighing as he exposed the sweat on his bare chest to the open air. He stood breathing for a moment, fully armored still below the waist, open black thermal layer above. When he moved to step up to his locker, he winced.

“What’s wrong? What’s the matter?” Kaidan sat on a small bench next to his own locker, armor still fastened, arms crossed over his knees. He was giving Shepard a concerned looked.

“It’s nothing,” Shepard replied hurriedly.

“Your back? Or your hip? Which one this time?” He cocked an eyebrow.

“This time?”

“Shepard,” he intoned, brow furrowed, “they’ve been bothering you since we left Earth. Hell, I first noticed the hip back on Horizon.”

“Hmm. You see everything, huh, Major?” Shepard’s managed a smirk instead of a wince when he took another step towards his locker.

Kaidan’s smile turned suspicious, and he stood, popping the seal on his own chest-plate.

“No bull, Shepard. Which is it?”

Shepard stopped at his locker for a moment, staring at the ground before replying,

“It’s the hip.” Barely more than a mumble.

“Old injury?” Kaidan fit his chest plate into the back, leaned both against the locker.

“My hip’s mostly light alloys now; all the nerves and connective tissue near the joint are cybernetic. Acts up once in a while. And the VI’s that regulate blood flow… Biotic charges can… take a toll on the system. The back too, I guess,” he muttered.

“Do you do anything for it?” Kaidan watched Shepard with concern as opened his locker, carefully organizing each piece inside as he removed them.

“The armor holds everything in place, but when the pressure lets up it can throb sometimes. Not looking forward to taking off these greaves.” Shepard’s gaze had found where Vega and Cortez stood talking elsewhere in the shuttle bay, his voice almost a whisper when he spoke. As he popped the seal on his own greaves, Kaidan traced Shepard’s gaze, and when he turned back around he lowered his own voice.

 “Yeah, I can feel a headache coming on; I know how you feel.” He pulled the greaves away.

Shepard frowned. “You need to hold off on your biotics a little, we could’ve cleared that landing pad with rifles.”

“ _You_ need hold off on your biotics!” Kaidan laughed, jerking his chin at where Shepard held his hip. But his eyes lingered at the trickle of sweat that ran down Shepard’s abdominals and below his belt-line, barely glimpsed through the open ‘V’ in his thermal layer.

When Kaidan stooped to stow his armor—tightly clad only in black thermal material from neck to ankles—Shepard returned the stare.

“…Fair enough,” Shepard said finally, wincing as he broke the seal above his bad hip. Kaidan sat back on the stool next to the lockers, unclasping only the collar on his thermals, then trying to wipe the sweat away on his legs, finding the fabric there just as moist.

“Well, here’s to hoping we both feel better after a shower and something to eat. I’m starving.”

“Guess we better make it snack first, then shower.” Shepard’s locker on the far end of the bank was cluttered, and he had to rearrange a few pieces of tech to fit his armor back in place.  
  
“Nah, the food is my reward for a mission complete.” Kaidan yawned, “Besides, once I get some chow I’ll be hitting the hay. Night shift followed by a raid on a Cerberus fighter base? Can’t believe how tired I am already.”  
  
“So… you’re going to be going to bed right after dinner then?” Shepard folded his arms across his chest, leaning against the lockers with an eyebrow quirked.

“You have something else in mind?” Kaidan mirrored his expression, taking in the site of Shepard’s stance in his base layer.

“I’m meeting Liara about some urgent project she wants my input on. But I’ve got an hour till then. Have dinner with me. My cabin.” Shepard watched Kaidan carefully.

Kaidan ran a hand through his hair, matted to his head with sweat, but already drying back into a perfect coif.

“Yeah, Shepard. I think I’d like that.”

Shepard nodded, offering Kaidan a hand and pulling him standing, hands lingering.

“So get showered, I’ll grab the food, and I’ll see you in my cabin in 30 minutes?” Shepard asked. Kaidan smiled. Shepard hadn’t lowered his voice at all.

++

“I’m impressed what you’ve done with this protein supp Shepard, this is halfway enjoyable.” Kaidan reached across the coffee table to ladle some more into his bowl, scooted to the edge of the sofa.

“Two parts protein supplement paste to three parts non-hydrated carb supp flakes. Ends up the consistency of mashed potatoes,” Shepard said, scraping a fallen morsel off the table with his spoon. Kaidan’s posture was more relaxed than one would imagine possible underneath the hard lines of his pristine uniform. Shepard had greeted him at the door in trousers and his white t-shirt again, hair still damp and a shade darker than when dry. The two biotics were only now sated enough to be able to concentrate on conversation, and had now moved on to dishing up seconds of the beige goop into bowls. “I’m afraid nothing can help the taste.”

Kaidan laughed at that, “One of my students—first time ever eating the stuff—used to complain about it all the time. Said it tasted like beef pretending to be chicken.”

“That’s already pretty generous.” Shepard grinned, his spoon slurping wetly as he separated another bite of paste from the congealing mass in his bowl. “Sorry it’s nothing fancy. I always feel odd eating real food after a mission. I usually eat it up so fast, I never have time to taste it.”

“I hear you,” Kaidan said, mouth full, “when I’m eating to replenish energy I usually just nuke a couple pouches of protein supp.”

“Great minds, eh, Spectre Alenko?” Shepard grinned, holding his bowl aloft.

“Great minds, Spectre Shepard.” Kaidan met the bowl with his own in a toast, “Training the Spec Ops Biotics division—doing extreme climate training at Ross Bay 60 miles from Antarctica station—we camped for 2 weeks, limited supplies, biotics online all day either carving out shelter from the ice or simulating rescues or just keeping yourself warm.” Kaidan leaned forward, continued talking around another spoonful of paste, “So my students are eating constantly. That same lieutenant I was just telling you about, Grayson, used to whip up something really classy for every meal. And we ate 6 times a day with snacks between. Took him forever! And the rest of us are just stuffing in the protein bars, and he’s sitting their mixing turmeric and cumin and god knows what else into his MRE trying to make it taste like some restaurant fare he had in Rio once. Well, we’re—on average—consuming 16000 calories a day just to keep warm! By the end of the first week, naturally, everyone gets so sick of just putting food in their bodies, even Grayson just gives up on all the spices and is just pounding straight protein supp with the most dejected look on his face! I had never seen anyone so depressed to be eating. Made me happy I could stand the stuff.”

Kaidan braced his arms on his knees laughing at the memory. Seeing Kaidan laughing brought a warm look to Shepard’s face. “After your stand against steak sauce, I’d think you’d feel some sympathy for poor Lt. Grayson!”

“Oh sure! No one loves a good meal as much as me, but work is work. It’s a lesson every soldier needs to learn eventually.” He stirred his bowl, scraping down the sides before taking another bite.

“I suppose so, huh?”

“Sure.” The two men sat in amused silence for a few moments, thoughtfully chewing and watching one another. “When did you learn the difference?” Kaidan’s lips had twisted up, and his brow crinkled almost apologetically.

“Between good food and bad food?”

“Nah. I’ve been thinking about what we were talking about last night: how you act different when you’re the Commander and when you’re just Ben Shepard. So, when did you figure out how to do that? Figure out the difference between your life and the work you have to do. Between being a soldier and being… a human.”

Shepard’s brow furrowed and he thought a moment, “I don’t separate them out like that.”

Kaidan choked laughing around a swallow of paste, “You’re kidding? Your whole demeanor changes when you’re in the CIC.”

“What? I don’t act different anywhere, I’m an open book!”

“The more you say that…” Kaidan shook his head, “Shepard, I know more about Liara’s life than I do about yours, and hers is three times as long and she’s an information broker. You never talk about yourself.”

“I did last night.”

“Under duress,” Kaidan teased.

“Alright,” Shepard inhaled sharply through a smug smile, “ask me anything?”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

“Where do you want to be in five years?” Kaidan said in a haughty, text-book tone.

Shepard blinked at him, “What? That’s not even fair. We’re in a war. I can’t really afford to think like that, I just hope I’m alive in five years.”

“See?” Kaidan chuckled, turning his next spoonful over in his mouth, “That’s a soldier’s answer.”

“I thought you were going to ask my favorite food or something.”

“Lamb Mahshi.”

Shepard cocked his head. “How…”

“You ordered it twice a week while you were under house arrest.”

“Were they really watching me that closely?” Shepard’s brows smoothed and he smiled. “ _You_ were watching that closely?”

“The owner of that little Syrian place in Vancouver figured out who was ordering and wanted to use your name to officially promote his restaurant. Caused a paper-work nightmare at HQ. Some of the staff in Anderson’s office were laughing about it.”

“I wondered why they stopped letting me order from there…” Shepard’s face scrunched in concentration: hard-coding.

“Shepard, you were under house arrest for months.” Kaidan started to wipe his hand on his pants, looked and reached for a napkin across the table instead. “Now I know you were champing at the bit to get back out there and fight the Reapers, but you had some time to think. To live… well, not a normal life, but the closest you’ve ever had?” He raised an eyebrow and Shepard nodded reluctantly, taking another bite, “You joke about the food, the nice bed. But what did you _think_ about? Did it make you think about life after this war? What do you _want_? _”_

Shepard chewed and stared, his expression frozen in its familiar expression of choosing his words carefully.

“I want there to be someplace left to go home to,” he tried, simply.

“That’s closer, but you’re still talking like a soldier. That’s a soldier’s objective.” Kaidan set his bowl down, watching Shepard out of the corner of his eye. “That’s not a personal wish, that’s not something you’re looking forward to. Those are the conditions for winning the war.” He retrieved one last scrape of protein mush off the side before setting his spoon down. “I guess…” Kaidan shrugged, “I jumped right into that question because it’s one I had a lot of time to think about in the hospital. Bed wasn’t near as nice as yours, I bet, but long as I was at a standstill I thought about… a lot of things,” he said quietly. “About you. About what I would do if the Reapers were gone tomorrow.” He leaned back, sighed, “Just wondering if you had thought about it at all.”

Shepard was quiet as he scraped the last morsels of his protein supp from the bowl. “On Mars, Liara asked me how I keep going, with the Reapers always one step ahead. I told her it was thinking about the people I care about, staying strong to fight for them… and…”

“…and?”

“I want them to be happy. I want to _see_ them happy,” he nodded, “if I can. Make sure for myself that they’re alright. More than alright. Happy.” His mouth twisted down at the corner, a stony resolve settling over his features.

“What do you think would make _you_ happy, Shepard?”

Shepard looked up from the floor, expression weary. “I don’t know. You’ve had more time to think about it. What do you want, Kaidan?”

Kaidan leaned back into the couch, his eyebrows scrunching together in an attempt to bury the smirk that was playing at the corner of his mouth.

“We talked about taking my mom off-world. I wanna do that. And then… I want… well. I’d like to go back to Vancouver, help rebuild. Help my mom… rebuild.” He swallowed, “Bury my father. Maybe.” With a deep breath, he began again with a more jovial tone, “I want to dance in the streets, y’know? And when that’s done… I think maybe I’d like to travel up the coast. Just to get away. Get a cabin, spend some time in the woods alone… or… y’know. With someone special.” There was a spark in his eyes when he raised them to Shepard’s face, Shepard’s look reflected his own.

“Yeah. That’s what I want too.” Shepard smiled. Kaidan let out a boisterous laugh.

“Cop out, Shepard! I knew you were going to do that!” His smile softened, “But I’ll be damned if I didn’t love hearing you say it.”

“When this war is over, let’s do that,” he said, gently.

“I guess I won’t even bother pushing this hypothetical out to five years, then. Don’t uh… don’t wanna jinx it.” Kaidan sighed, “Sorry. I guess it was a pretty unfair question from the start.”

Shepard shifted, “Not at all…”

Kaidan shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, “And after everything I said last night about ‘warming up’ and taking our time… stupid.”

“Hey,” Shepard scooted forward, leaning his head down to try to get himself in Kaidan’s sightline, “You said a lot about not wasting time either, right?”

 “Shepard… I… I’ve had a lot of time to sort out my feelings for you.” Kaidan was talking fast now, heaving out the confession in one long breath, “I never felt closer to my commanding officer than I did to you, I would’ve followed you straight into hell. You listened when I needed you to listen, you helped me, and you let me help you. Over Alchera, when I found out you hadn’t made it to an escape pod… it took weeks for it to hit me how…” Kaidan wiped a hand across his brow, “I was devastated, Shepard. I’ve lost friends before… for the longest time I told myself that the emptiness I felt was because of hero worship, or something. But that wasn’t it. You were a good man. I didn’t recognize the feeling, but after you were declared dead, I realized I cared about you… not as the ‘Hero of the Citadel,’ or as my commander, or even as my friend, but… but…”

Kaidan clenched his fists and his shoulders drew up in a colossal sigh. He stood, briskly stepped up to Shepard’s place on the couch to kneel down, placing his hand behind Shepard’s head. Without a nother word, he drew him in for a desperate kiss. Shepard’s bowl clattered to the side on the couch, and he leaned in, fingers pulling at the front of Kaidan’s uniform.

Kaidan pulled away, breathing deep when he pressed their foreheads together.

“It took me two years to come to terms with the way I feel about you, Shepard. I know what I want. But I don’t expect you to… It’s a big change. I don’t mind… seeing where this goes. I don’t wanna make you… make long-term plans or anything. I’m happy to just… see what it’s like to be ‘us’… right here.” He mumbled the last words as Shepard nibbled on his lip. With a light touch, he smoothed his thumb over the cleft in Kaidan’s chin, sliding forward till his thighs pressed warm against Kaidan’s side. Shepard stared, pupils wide in the dim light; as if his eyes were trying to take in all of Kaidan’s expression, hard-coding the look of want that played across his features.

“It is a big change, Kaidan.” His voice was so quiet, it was nearly hoarse when he spoke, “We have a lot of catching up to do, and by the time this war is over, I want to be caught up. And once the Reapers are gone… I want to go to that cabin with you.” He kissed Kaidan just as desperately, pulling Kaidan’s bottom lip back with him when he tipped his head away. “That’s what I want.”

Shepard dipped his tongue into Kaidan’s mouth and traced the curl forming on his lips, kissing at the dimple in his cheek when Kaidan began to laugh, relieved. When he slung one arm around Shepard’s shoulder and the other around Shepard’s knee, Shepard lunged forward and the two men bashed into the table, tumbled to the ground. Shepard pressed on top of Kaidan, and they scrambled trying to kiss each other’s neck.

“I wanna know all there is to know about you, Shepard.” Kaidan groaned when Shepard’s tongue pressed into his pulse, sucking lightly at the skin. He took Shepard’s head in his hands and pulled him away before a mark formed, “I want to know what you’ve been doing since… since Horizon. Since Alchera.” Again Shepard’s mouth covered his, and with his arms wrapped around Shepard’s body, he pulled their bodies together with the same intensity. When Shepard came up for air and concentrated his ministrations on Kaidan’s earlobe, Kaidan murmured, “And let me know how your talk with Liara goes tonight.”

Shepard made something like a groan and became dead weight atop Kaidan, his head thudding on the deck. “Come on! Now you’re just teasing me.”

Kaidan reluctantly slid out from under Shepard and got to his feet, turning to offer Shepard a hand.

“I told you I’m not about waiting around, Shepard. But this thing with Liara seems important. And… and you’re important to me. When someone is important to you… you want to make sure everything is what it’s supposed to be, y’know?” Kaidan gripped Shepard’s hand and hoisted the man off the floor, pulling him in for an embrace.

“I understand, Kaidan.” Shepard arms tightened around his neck, and his hips settled into Kaidan’s grip. He kissed the side of Kaidan’s face until the other man twisted in his arms, and he opened his mouth for Kaidan’s tongue. After a few breathless moments, Kaidan pulled away.

“God _damn_ , Shepard.” He laughed. Shepard grinned mischievously.

“You could come back in a half hour?”

“Ha! No, take your time talking to Liara. I know this project is a big deal. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He laid one more kiss on Shepard’s lips from the top of the steps. “Maybe talking with her will help you make some plans, eh, Shepard?”

Shepard watched him leave, leaned against the wall and let his head thwock against the fish tank, one hand resting with thumb tucked into his belt. When he stepped up to his console to summon Liara, he still had his fingertips touched to his mouth, pressed into the tingling sensation Kaidan had left on his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Meet with Liara in Cabin
> 
> It turns out Shepard thought about quite a lot while under house arrest, "Kaidan's lucky, he just gets migraines", and Karin Chakwas knows what's up.


	4. The Difference between Horizon and Mars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Normandy's been flying all over the galaxy rescuing elcor units and salvaging ancient treasures. It's all crucial to the war effort, but it leaves lots of time for other things. Or it would...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Art in this Chapter brought to you by the fantastic[OpalLight!](http://opallight.tumblr.com/)**

Shepard stepped into the Starboard Observation Lounge, waiting just inside when the hatched closed, squinting for a moment into the darkness as his eyes adjusted. The lights had been turned completely off, the window into space a midnight counterpart to the aquarium in his quarters. Kaidan was a silhouette against the field of stars, seated on the couch.

“Kaidan?”

“Heeey, there you are.” Kaidan smiled up at him, tone easy, even while he seemed to be blinking heavily.

“I was surprised we hadn’t run into each other yet today,” Shepard said softly.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Kaidan sighed, pinching at the bridge of his nose, “Been meaning to get you that report on the Dekuuna evacs we completed last night.”

“Actually,  I was wondering more how _you’re_ doing.” Shepard sat next to Kaidan and put a hand on his knee. Kaidan looked down at Shepard’s hand then into his eyes. Again, his stare was interrupted at uneven intervals by heavy blinks.

“Just checking in, huh?” His mouth twisted into a smirk.

“I guess you could say that.” Shepard rubbed gently up his leg.

“Makes me feel special.” A playful sarcasm pushed through the obvious strain in his voice. Shepard opened his mouth but seemed at last to think better of a protest.

“I guess you should.”

“Well thanks, Shepard. That’s really great.”

He covered Shepard’s hand with his own. He watched the window, as if—long as he stared hard enough—he might observe the drift of stars thousands of light years off. Like minnows in a current, or pixelated clouds in a Presidium sky.

Shepard tipped forward to try and arrest Kaidan’s gaze.

“Something going on? Your students?” He spoke gently, bumping Kaidan’s shoulder with his own.

“Uhh, no. No, it’s not that.” Kaidan’s voice was choked when he finally spoke up, “Sometimes… sometimes I look out there and… it’s hard to remember what things were like before… this.” He waved a hand dismissively at a dimmed data-pad next to his foot, “This war.”

“We’re going to make it through this, Kaidan,” Shepard answered back, “Once we’re back on the Citadel, I’ll talk to Dr. Bryson. Anything that can kill a Reaper is something we want on our side,” he continued voice resolute. “In the mean time, we have to keep fighting. Do the best we can.”

Kaidan huffed, mouth twisting into a wry smile. “Well, that’s what a good Commander would say, isn’t it?”

Shepard blinked, “I… I guess I don’t know what else to say.” He watched Kaidan’s expression, tried to mirror the smirk for a moment before aborting the attempt.

“I’m sorry, Shepard.” Kaidan shook his head, patting the hand on his knee, “That wasn’t fair at all. You’re right about all of that… I just…”

“…just what?” Shepard shifted till he pressed into Kaidan’s side, but Kaidan still watched the window with heavy-lidded eyes, wracked here and there by a heavy blink. “I know I’m not the best at… comforting people. But I can listen.”

Kaidan turned at the quaver in Shepard’s voice. “No, you… you do a great job making people feel at ease, Shepard.” He assured him, “To tell you the truth I’ve been thinking a lot about my dad. Missing in action. I’m worried about him. But I can’t help but thinking…” He trailed off again.

“…go on?” Shepard said softly when Kaidan had been steeling himself to continue for long enough.

“My dad was a soldier. He was retired by the time they had me—hell, he retired so _that_ they could have me, have a family—but even when I was a kid he was always… a soldier, y’know?” Kaidan rested his face in his palms, rubbing at his left eye, “He never saw combat, Shepard. Not like this. He joined the Alliance because he wanted to help people,” Kaidan articulated each word. “He’s an old man. Had no business enlisting again… but of course he had to.”

“I see where you get it from.” Shepard offered with a warm smile.

“Well,” Kaidan chuckled, “I’m not _that_ old, Shepard.”

Shepard hummed, touched the gray at Kaidan’s temple.

“Besides,” Kaidan turned his face into Shepard’s fingers, “My dad was retired by my age.”

“Oh?” Shepard leaned in to rest his forehead against Kaidan’s, who blinked hard.

“Yeah. Guess… I’m thinking about all the things I never got to say to him… so much of our lives together—between my dad and me—feels like… wasted time.”

“Don’t talk like that.” Shepard nudged into him, brows knitted, “He’s a soldier, he’s still out there.”

“Maybe.” Kaidan rubbed his eye, then stretched the side of his face to pull it wide open.

“Is… something else bothering you?” Shepard quirked an eyebrow.

“Naw. Just… can’t really see out of my left eye right now.” Kaidan sighed.

“You what?” Shepard scooted forward on the couch to inspect Kaidan’s face, who turned away and rolled his eyes.

“It’s just an aura, Shepard, I get ‘em all the time. It means a migraine’s on the way. Sometimes I lose my vision a little bit.”

“And this happens often?” Shepard’s voice was tinged with worry, but Kaidan just looked annoyed.

“Not often. No. The headaches are pretty frequent, sometimes better, sometimes worse. I usually get a little nauseous, but the more… colorful migraine symptoms: no. They don’t come up too often. I can still cover you in the field.” He leaned away when Shepard tried to take his face to look into his eyes, swatting Shepard’s other hand away. “You gotta know I wouldn’t risk a mission on pride. I can fight through the pain, but if something like this happens, I’d let you know. I’m not gonna make myself a liability out there.”

“That _wasn’t_ why I was asking Kaidan.” Shepard’s lips pressed thin.

“I know, Shepard, I know. I guess, well… Everyone knows about the migraines, but it’s not exactly documented how intense they can get. Now that we’re… involved… I knew I’d tell you eventually, just didn’t want it to be like this, y’know?” He blinked hard again, leaving his left eye closed, sighed. “I’ve really been killing the mood lately, huh?”

Shepard sighed too, but gave a weak smile, and his eyebrow crooked up when Kaidan raised his hand to stroke his fingers over Shepard’s cheek. Just then, Kaidan blinked his eyes closed, and when they reopened they struggled to focus on Shepard’s face.

“What could possibly be a more romantic setting for a conversation about migraines? The stars, the soft hum of the Normandy...” Shepard teased.

“Well, when you put it that way.” Kaidan smiled, blinking hard trying to focus on Shepard’s face through the light and fog crowding out his vision. He started when he felt Shepard lean in for a kiss. “Careful, Commander, fraternizing in the Observation lounge could give a restless crew ideas,” He snickered.

“Well I can think of places I’d rather be fraternizing.” Shepard rubbed his knuckles against Kaidan’s leg, laying another kiss on his temple.

“The… umm… If you ever duty roster… umm… line up schedules…” Kaidan slurred, and Shepard gave him a questioning look. Closing his eyes, Kaidan cleared his throat, “If the duty… umm… if you get the roster to… to… shit…” Kaidan sighed heavily. “Mm… Shepard…. Sorry…”

When Kaidan turned away from Shepard’s inspection again, Shepard sank to a knee in front of him trying to meet his eye, concern weighing down his brow.

“Kaidan? Are you alright?”

Kaidan nodded, looking frustrated. He pursed his lips, eyes closed tightly, deeply concentrating, “Aura…” He touched his mouth, trying to signal, “Hmmmm…”

Shepard bolted up, gripping Kaidan’s elbow, “Come on, we’re going to go see Dr. Chakwas.”

Kaidan made an aggravated and indistinct hum, shaking his head and patting Shepard’s arm, pulling out of his grip.

“Kaidan, come on. It’s nothing to worry about, she can help,” Shepard said, taking Kaidan’s arm more softly, still Kaidan wouldn’t meet his eye. “If you want I’ll bring her in here.” With that Kaidan sighed and nodded. “Come on.”

When Kaidan smashed his knee into the side of the couch, Shepard took him around the shoulders to guide him more directly. When Kaidan stumbled against the bulkhead, feeling for where he was going, Shepard quickened his pace. When the bulkheads began to curve, Kaidan seemed to know they were entering the mess hall and grunted in frustration. Shepard glanced about, but the mess was fairly empty at the moment. Still, Kaidan hummed in embarrassment, his posture pulling rigid long enough to appear resolute for any gawking subordinates. But not a soul happened to see the prideful major draped around his Commander’s shoulders, racing to the medbay.

“Dr. Chakwas!” Shepard shouted the moment the doors of the medbay slid open. Chakwas whirled in her chair with a look of determination, which turned to understanding the moment she laid eyes on Kaidan.

“Please, bring him over to the bed, Commander.”

“He said he had lost part of his visual field, a few moments ago he started stuttering. Something about an ‘aura,’” Shepard’s voice raced, he all but hoisted Kaidan onto the nearest bed, Kaidan’s head slumped in frustration, an annoyed hum emanating from the back of his throat.

Dr. Chakwas patted the major’s shoulder, noticed how Shepard still had his arm around Kaidan. “Excuse me, Shepard.” Shepard stepped back to give her room. She took Kaidan’s head in her hand and tipped his chin so she was looking directly into his eyes. Shepard stepped to the side, trying for a better angle, watched Kaidan blinking, squinting. Chakwas continued to peer into his unfocused eyes, grasping his hand.

“Major Alenko, are you alright?” Kaidan closed his eyes and nodded firmly. “The square root of sixteen is…?” Kaidan squeezed her hand deliberately four times.

“I’m concerned there’s a problem with his implant; he said he occasionally has these auras, but he stumbled on the walk here…” Shepard blurted out. Chakwas gave Kaidan a knowing look and squeezed his hand. Kaidan hummed and sighed, his head slumping forward with a tight little smile on his face.

“Shepard, you’re aware of Major Alenko’s migraines,” she said calmly. “Occasionally severe migraines are presaged by a variety of symptoms to which the Major is occasionally susceptible. The visual auras are one such symptom, as is a transient aphasia.”

“Transient aphasia?” Shepard crossed his arms with a frown, taking the edge of one of his pockets between thumb and fore-finger.

“Yes. Electrical impulses in the brain essentially rob Kaidan of the ability to speak. At least, to speak coherently. As for the stumbling, I doubt very much whether the major can see either of us through the aura at the moment.”

Kaidan hummed something like a forced laugh and shrugged his shoulders.

“You mean this has happened before?” Shepard’s face was blank: hard-coding.

“Yes. Not often, but certain triggers can induce these more dramatic symptoms.”

“But… Kaidan’s always talked about headaches.”

“Oh, the headache will come.” Chakwas sighed, looking back down at Kaidan. “The fortunate thing about the auras is that they usually precede the actual pain a bit, giving us time to administer a sedative before the pain becomes unbearable—“ Kaidan shook his head violently and seemed to wince, he made a small moan of pain. Chakwas looked meaningfully at Shepard at the major’s display of stubbornness, “—but Major Alenko insists on not taking one when off-duty.”

“I never knew about this before.”

“These auras are infrequent, Commander, and the major is as likely to get one of these as one of your crew is to get the sniffles or become hypoglycemic from an MRE. The difference being, Kaidan’s auras usually resolve fairly quickly. And as you’ve seen, Major Alenko performs remarkably well through his L2 flare-ups.”

“I actually don’t believe he’s ever had a flare up on a mission before…” Shepard shook his head.

“Ha!” Kaidan guffawed, then hummed to himself in incredulity.

“I take it you’d like to return to your quarters, Major?” To answer Chakwas’ question, Kaidan released his hold on her hand and scooched off the bed. “I wonder if you might make sure he gets to his quarters alright, Shepard. There’s no telling just how long the aura will last, and the effects can be very confusing, even as familiar with them as Kaidan is.” Kaidan rolled his eyes at that and winced, “Occasionally transient aphasia makes it so that the sufferer ceases to understand language as well as use it. Signs and switches become confusing even as one’s vision returns. Within the hour, he may not even be able to understand what either of us are saying. Normally I’d use the limited time he can understand me to fight through his objections and keep him here for the night…” she noticed the way Shepard had already slipped his arm around Kaidan’s back, the pale worry still playing across the commander’s features, “…but it seems like he’s getting competent support. Goodnight gentlemen. Please let me know if I can do anything for you, Major.”

Kaidan looked up, his face a mask of pain, and tried to smile. Dr. Chakwas patted him on the shoulder affectionately and again shot Shepard a meaningful look.

When they emerged from the medbay, the mess hall was busier. Kaidan’s body straightened in Shepard’s arm, placing all his weight on his own feet, squinting hard ahead. Shepard, for his part, removed his arm from behind Kaidan’s back and placed one hand on Kaidan’s shoulder, the minimum support he could provide. The pair moved slowly, but not unusually so, and none of the crew took more than a passing interest in them. The light gleaming off the war memorial was clearly exacerbating the problem, and instead of turning toward the crew quarters, Shepard gently pulled Kaidan towards the lift.

“I’m going to make sure you get a quiet night’s sleep.” Shepard’s voice shook. “Just hold on Kaidan.” The elevator door closed and he watched the holo indicator as the lift crawled up the ship. “EDI, dim the lights in my room to 10%. In fact, dim all of the lights on A deck.”

“Acknowledged, Commander.” The voice emanating from the comms system was quiet, almost a whisper. The lift doors slid open and in another moment they were in Shepard’s darkened cabin. Hearing Kaidan inhale sharply through his teeth almost made Shepard take more of his weight, trying to bustle him down to the bed. But the way Kaidan slowly but surely insisted on supporting his own weight encouraged Shepard to endure the careful journey from the hatch to the bed. Leading Kaidan to the right side of the bed, he flung off the blanket and grabbed the brightly glowing holo-clock on the bedside table, tossing it among the crates behind the bed. Kaidan immediately dropped down, cradling his head in his hands and wincing sharply, a soft growl of misery slipping out between his teeth.

“Can I get you anything?” Shepard asked, too loudly. Then softer: “Would… a drink help?” There was no reply from Kaidan except more pained noises. “Alright, lay down then.” Shepard softly laid a hand on Kaidan’s shoulder and the man immediately slumped over into a pillow, rubbing the back of his neck.

Shepard made quick work removing Kaidan’s boots—even ignoring Kaidan when he tried to bat his hands away to do it himself—pulled the blanket up around Kaidan’s chest. Shepard’s forehead had been a mess of creases since they left the med-bay, and he stared down helplessly.

“I’m… going to get you a glass of water.” Shepard stood—too quickly— and he was suddenly glowing blue, shoulders tensed in the physical mnemonic that controlled his biotic charge. He calmed himself with a few deep breaths, the light fading from his skin, then proceeded to the bathroom without launching his body through the display case.

By the time he emerged from the bathroom with the glass of water a moment later, Kaidan had curled around himself. His quiet grunts of pain broke the stillness of the quiet cabin. Shepard rushed down the steps.  Kneeling on the other side of the bed, he gently touched Kaidan’s shoulder. The only reaction was another moan.  
  
“Are you alright, Kaidan?” He rolled his eyes, “Of course you’re not. Can… can you hear me?” He lay on his side, craning his ear close to Kaidan’s mouth. Kaidan’s eyes were still screwed shut, and now he moaned softly, the veins in his temples standing out with strain.

Shepard paced the room for several minutes.

He sat down at a bedside chair where he could see Kaidan’s face, resting his chin his hands. Kaidan’s mouth was a thin line, jaw so tight it spasmed when he’d huff out a frustrated breath. Though Shepard tried to emulated the expression for a moment, he huffed back to standing a moment later in frustration.

He paced again.

He removed his own boots and laid down on the couch. Then he readjusted to be able to better see Kaidan on the bed. He closed his eyes for a few minutes. He rubbed at the furrow in his brow.

Finally, he stood to pace again.

When Kaidan made an anguished growl into his pillow, Shepard rushed to his side, but there was still no verbal response to his offerings.

After a while he sank down onto the other side of the bed. He regarded Kaidan with a worried expression, gently touched his back—pulled away. He reached out again and left his hand, starting to rub into Kaidan’s shoulders. It was a deep sigh and a trembling effort that finally brought Shepard spooning up behind Kaidan, his arms still hesitant around Kaidan’s arms, uncertainly brushing a finger through his hair.

“Kaidan... I had no idea.” The words were almost a whisper. “Hell, I don’t even know if you can understand what I’m saying.” He looked at the back of Kaidan’s head for any sign, but there was none. “I’m sorry there isn’t more I can do. I feel… pretty helpless. I’m… not good with helpless. And I just don’t have any information… I don’t know how to… I don’t know _anything_ about these symptoms.”

His body tensed in response to the way Kaidan’s went rigid beside him, the agonized groan that spilled out of Kaidan’s clenched jaw.

“You can’t keep doing this to me, Kaidan. Seeing you laid up like this, seeing you in pain.”

After a few minutes, the more abrupt gasps of pain became less frequent; but Kaidan’s body was tenser than ever, and so Shepard lowered his voice to a whisper—barely audible at all—and breathed his words into the back of Kaidan’s neck.

“One of the first conversations I ever had with you got interrupted by one of these damn migraines. Seems like there’s always something getting in the way…” He leaned his forehead against Kaidan. “But now… you and me. We’ve got a… a chance now. A chance to have something… real. Maybe have someone to live for after this war is over.”

There was another groan deep in Kaidan’s chest, a grimacing gasp. Shepard felt around to Kaidan’s hands, but when he tried to interlace their fingers, Kaidan’s fists remained clenched.

“I don’t know what made you finally open up at Apollo’s, Kaidan. But I’m glad you did. The way you handled yourself on Mars… in that new armor… it was hot.” Shepard blushed, “I mean, of course I was _attracted_ to you as soon as I met you. But it didn’t seem… it’s not really like me to pursue… I’ve had to focus my whole career, to do my best for the people serving with me. When you told me about Rahna, talked to me about the mission, the way I saw people through your eyes. I knew I wanted you in my life, Kaidan. I couldn’t ruin that chance by trying to get you into bed. I never would’ve imagined…” Shepard stretched one leg, wincing when his hip made a metallic popping noise. “I never would’ve imagined we could be together like this. Sorry our first time in bed isn’t under better circumstances.”

He attempted a private smile, pulling himself tighter into the other man’s back.

“On Horizon, I realized how much I had come to rely on your integrity, on your vision: where every planet was a chance to discover something incredible, not just another chance to get… eaten by a thresher maw… That no matter how strange they seemed, aliens are just like us.” Shepard closed his eyes, feeling Kaidan’s labored breaths beneath his arms. “The way you won’t let anything compromise your principles… When I realized I was asking you to compromise those principles on Horizon—when you told me that I had compromised my own… It shook me. I hadn’t realized how deeply I cared for… or… relied… on you. How great a friend you were. Suddenly, saving lives meant sacrificing that friendship, severing myself from that anchor.” He exhaled heavily, his voice shaking, “Sacrifice is part of the job, I know. Still that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”

Kaidan shuddered as another wince wracked his body. Shepard’s voice still whispered, but now had an edge of desperation to it.

“I should’ve known you’d be suspicious, but it didn’t even cross my mind, I was so focused on the Collectors.  Even if you could believe that I was doing the right thing… sometimes the way you do a thing matters. I was cutting corners, just like you said we’d always have to. But this time you weren’t there.”

Shepard stalled, “I asked about you. Anderson, Miranda, the Illusive Man: You were the first thing I asked about. Tried to contact you again and again. You made me question everything I was doing. Seeing you in Vancouver and… having you back on the Normandy… it was nice. I felt like I had my anchor back.” Shepard chuckled quietly, “And I’ll be damned if I didn’t mind seeing you in your thermal layer after a mission again!”

Shepard ran his hand down Kaidan’s arm.

“I can’t believe I’m saying all this.  Sorry. I…” he rolled his eyes, “I guess it’s all the touching. I’m not really used to this… this touching. I guess what I’m used to… well… if someone’s ever touched me the way you’ve been touching me, the way we’ve been touching… well it was all just foreplay. Always just… touching to get someone hot. I know things are different for you, and I’m sorry if I’ve been confused. But this… this peaceful bodies and… and… arms around shoulders… that’s what real couples do I suppose.”

Shepard’s lips curled into a ghost of a smile, hidden in the warmth behind Kaidan’s neck.

“What was I even saying? I’m no good at this. Mars? Yeah. Having you back with me. On Mars… Well, last night you asked me what I did when I was under house arrest.”

Shepard swallowed, his sigh tickling the small hairs on the back of Kaidan’s neck.

“I _did_ thinka lot, but not about a five year plan or anything. I thought about _how_ I was going to do things when I got back in the fight—if I ever got back. So when we were on Mars, I was more convinced than ever of what I was doing. Giving myself up to Alliance authority once I broke with Cerberus, advising on the Reapers, taking the Normandy to get support for Earth when I would’ve rather stayed.“

Shepard turned his face into the pillow, the fabric muffling his words.

“You were the one that helped me make those choices. Even though you weren’t around, it was still your influence that guided me. But still you weren’t sure about me. Then when that mech… seeing you in a coma in the hospital...”

Shepard set his jaw and inhaled deeply.

 “I knew that defeating the Reapers wouldn’t mean much if you didn’t make it through. There was no point in going on this mission if you weren’t there. Call that… caring or interest. I didn’t even think about it till we were together. I don’t always think about… never mind.” He rolled his eyes. “Still, I didn’t know what I was doing when I finally talked to you again. Clearing the air in the hospital—And then you asking me if I was flirting with you… I don’t know.” Shepard chuckled. “I had made up my mind what we were to each other, and I was so preoccupied with getting us back to that place… if you hadn’t suggested what you did at Apollo’s, I… I just don’t think I ever would’ve thought it was possible.”

Kaidan’s skin was warm and flushed, and when he leaned up to dab at the sweat on his forehead, Shepard couldn’t help but place a kiss on Kaidan’s throat. Leaning in his ear, he said:

“There, now you know the speech _I’ve_ been practicing. Maybe I’ll actually have the courage to… say it to you when you’re… back on your feet. Instead of just wanting to…” Shepard shook his head, “Instead of wanting to just rip all your clothes off. I want to be with you… and… I’m not sure what that means, yet. But… Thank you, Kaidan. Even if you didn’t get any of this, I needed to say that.”

++

It was a rough night. It was two sleepless hours before Kaidan’s groaning dissipated. Shortly after, when Kaidan finally seemed to be able to articulate words again, his body soon slumped exhausted back into Shepard’s chest. The pain was still apparent on his face, but the strain of it was gone from the rest of his body. Just before his breathing settled into the rhythm of sleep, his hand clutched at Shepard’s forearm with surprising strength. It was only then that Shepard allowed himself to close his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have really bad migraines. Sorry, Kaidan. 
> 
> Next Chapter:  
> Follows directly after this chapter: the next morning. Kaidan receives an inquiry concerning Shepard.


	5. The Difference between Babbling and Opening Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan, the studious dudious, gets caught up on work post-migraine, and also gets caught up on his feelings about Shepard and Cerberus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Begins immediately following Chapter 4.

There was a faint buzzing above Shepard’s bed, and Kaidan’s eyes slowly prized open. Shepard’s cabin was still dark, and he craned his neck around to survey the scene. Shepard was on the other side of the bed: arms flung above his head and off the bed, legs splayed. He hadn’t even stripped down to his white t-shirt before falling asleep: a ritual Kaidan had observed every evening he’d spent with the man. Thrashing and turning in the night had left his uniform twisted and disheveled, but for the moment his chest rose and fell in a deep, steady sleep.

Kaidan’s own uniform was sweaty, crumpled. He had stretched himself diagonally across the bed, a habit developed as a tall man sleeping in standard Alliance size cots. He sat up slowly, careful not to disturb Shepard as he untangled their legs. He rubbed his shoulders to the base of his skull, stretching the muscles even as the motion made him grimace.

The buzzing was coming from the faint orange glow of the bedside clock, haphazardly tossed behind some crates still stowed in Shepard’s quarters from the retrofit. Reaching back, Kaidan pierced the surface of the holo to set it in snooze mode before picking up the physical apparatus and placing it softly back on the bedside table. According to the time, his shift began in about an hour, and the duty roster indicated that Shepard wasn’t meant to take the con for another seven. Turning, he watched Shepard lightly snoring on the other side of the bed, body crooked as if unconsciously bending around Kaidan’s now empty place on the mattress. It was as if the mere imprint of Kaidan’s presence had scooched him over, shifted some pattern of the commander’s routine. The sight made Kaidan smile, and he lingered and looked long after he had finished smoothing his own uniform and dabbing the sweat from his neck.

He eased himself back onto the bed for a moment, sitting against the headboard. In his sleep, Shepard’s arm experimentally swept over the mattress, and when his fingers made contact with Kaidan, the arm pulled back hastily. Shepard mumbled incoherently, face pressed into the side of a pillow. Kaidan watched the action with a soft smile, resting his hand on Shepard’s slowly enough where the sleeping man’s reflexes allowed it to stay. So Kaidan sat like that for a while, dozing lightly in the pillows, Shepard snoring by his side.  

Eventually, though, he crept carefully off the bed, stepped up to Shepard’s desk. He sat, checking Shepard’s still form through the glass of the model case for a moment to see if he had stirred at the noise: not at all.

The work was piled up after his episode last night. He made quick work of the Dekunna report and began reading through the situation briefings. His inbox was a long list of such briefings, but another message caught his eye:

 

> _Major Alenko,_
> 
> _Greetings, my name is Spectre Col Vedirus, in charge of Citadel Special Projects. Allow me to say, first of all, how happy I am to have you in our ranks after the recent Citadel coup. You are a credit to our number and to your species. There are those of us who still value the integrity of our office above the prestige of our appointment._
> 
> _I am contacting you in regards to the coup. As head of Citadel Special Projects, I am performing my own investigation on the coup independent of C-Sec actions. Since you played a pivotal role in evacuating the Council, I was wondering if you might send some thoughts regarding that, as well as the involvement of Commander Shepard._
> 
> _To my knowledge, no report on the coup has presently been filed by either you, or Commander Shepard._
> 
> _Looking forward anxiously to working with you,_  
>  Col Vedirus  
>  Special Tactics  
>  CSP
> 
>  

Kaidan read the email, and read it again when Shepard’s shifting in bed made him lose his place near the end. The second read-through made him frown, and he began his own reply message:

>  
> 
> _Spectre Col,_
> 
> _I appreciate you contacting me. My Spectre report on the incident was filed with Records and Communique the same day as the coup. You will have to request the form from them._
> 
> _You have the wrong idea about Commander Shepard._

 

Kaidan read back over that sentence, lips moving as he scanned the line. After re-reading Col Vedirus’ formal prose, he deleted the line and began again:

>  
> 
> _In response to your inquiry concerning Commander Shepard’s involvement, I am obliged to ensure that you have no inkling that the commander in any way aided or abetted Cerberus in its coup attempt._

 

He whispered the new line back to himself and gave his reflection in the data-pad a satisfied grin. He continued, self-correcting as he wrote:

>  
> 
> _Furthermore, without Shepard’s intervention, the Cerberus plot would ~~certainly have~~  have certainly succeeded._
> 
> _By the time I had evacuated Councilors Udina, Sparatus, and Tevos, the commander had been defending civilians on the Presidium. He and Thane Krios saved the life of Councilor Valern during a direct attack on his person by a highly trained Cerberus operative. ~~Check the footage, if you don’t trust the~~ Security footage of the area will doubtless prove the commander’s ~~story~~ ~~testimony?~~ story correct._
> 
> _~~For another thing~~ Should the word of the rescued councilors fail to convince you of Shepard’s loyalty, I can personally vouch for him._
> 
> _I served under commander Shepard on his first command as his staff lieutenant ~~during the Saren debacle~~ shortly after he had been granted Spectre status. ~~I have never~~  Never have I met a more dedicated or capable soldier, or a commander who earned more respect from his crew._
> 
> _Commander Shepard has been cleared of any suspicion regarding his involvement ~~with Cerberus~~ in Cerberus functions. ~~Yes, he worked with a Cerberus crew to~~  His only operation with Cerberus ~~to date~~ has been traveling through the Omega-4 relay to stop attacks ~~of human colonies~~ on Council Space. Afterwards, Shepard willingly surrendered to Alliance custody with several pieces of commandeered Cerberus technology, including the SSV Normandy SR-2._

 

Kaidan sat back in his chair for a moment, rubbing at the deep creases in his forehead. His eyes scanned over what he had written so far, eyebrows knotting more and more as he surveyed his response. He’d grown tenser with every edit. His expression only hardened when he looked through the glass at Shepard’s sleeping form on the bed: exhausted, relaxed for the first time in years. Kaidan had never seen him sleep before. When he turned back to his response the words came out in a flurry:

>  
> 
> _Shepard’s career with the Alliance and his accomplishments in the short amount of time he’s been a Spectre should be all the proof anyone needs that Shepard is as dedicated to serving people as anyone. If there’s any doubt about Shepard’s loyalty, you will have to file a formal complaint against me as well._
> 
> _I’ve been a close friend of the commander’s for a long time. He’s not a man with simple motives, and through our time together I’ve gotten to understand him better than most. Because of this, I was more suspicious than anyone when reports surfaced that he was working with Cerberus, and I confronted him on it. Even after the Alliance tribunal cleared him of charges and reinstated his rank I have my own suspicions._
> 
> _But Shepard saved lives, even though he had to work with an evil organization to do it. And the Reaper invasion proves that Shepard’s instincts have been right from the start. These instincts are exactly why Shepard was chosen to be a Spectre in the first place._
> 
> _During the coup, I turned my back on Shepard—while he had a weapon drawn on a councilor—because I trusted him. So if there’s any doubt about Shepard, you’ll have to investigate me as well. Shepard is an inspiration to his crewmates and to me. More than that, he is a friend to his crew, which isn’t something a lot of commanders can achieve. I have seen his integrity both on and off-duty. On the first Normandy we had grown so close we had planned a shore-leave together in Vancouver. Hearing Shepard had disappeared was personally devastating to me, and recently in intimate moments_

 

Kaidan stopped.

He skimmed over his past few lines. He deleted the phrase ‘intimate moments’. He read the whole letter again. His face grew pale as he silently reviewed the full tirade. He deleted the message entirely. Instead, he opened a new file on a data-pad, titled it for the date, and began to type.

>  
> 
> _I’m breaking fraternization regs and honestly it doesn’t even bother me. I thought I knew how important Shepard was to me before we had our heart-to-heart in Apollo’s. But as the days go by, I can’t believe how much I’ve come to rely on him being here for me, like this. Last night is pretty blurry but at least he talked to me. And he talked a lot. And he stayed with me all night._

 

Shepard stirred on the bed: no more than a twitch, but Kaidan watched him through the model-case and heaved a quiet sigh.

>  
> 
> _It’s funny how people look when they’re asleep. Shepard looks like any other man. That sounds so cliché, doesn’t it? But it’s true. Makes me feel like I need to protect him: from the Reapers, from the mercs, from all the people who give him sideways looks for working with Cerberus._
> 
> _I didn’t think I’d ever forgive him for that. Now it all seems so unimportant. At the time, I told him I was an Alliance man for good. Now I’m breaking all the rules. Shacked up with my CO in his cabin. Perks of being a major? Spectre status? If you would’ve told me three years ago I’d be involved with another soldier and my commanding officer? I’d have laughed in your face. But here I am, spent the night in bed with a man I trust more than anyone in the world. And I don’t even know that much about him._
> 
> _Sure I was knocked flat by a flare-up, but still. Maybe I’m reading into things, but he didn’t treat me like I was his crewmember. I don’t think Shepard’s had to ‘take care’ of someone his whole life, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think it was pretty nice to have someone there. I remember a lot about Horizon, hearing him talk about Earth plenty, pretty sure he talked a lot about sex._

 

Kaidan rolled his eyes to himself with a smile.

>  
> 
> _But I know he was talking to me. Just talking. Shepard doesn’t ‘just talk.’ He wasn’t answering questions or making a speech. I honestly never thought I’d see the day. Goddamn migraines._
> 
> _But I think this is going to work. I really think this is going to work_
> 
> _Shacked up with Commander Shepard. What would my dad say?_

 

Kaidan let the pad fall to his lap, watched the fish swim in the aquarium light, still dimmed from last night. He checked the time on his omni-tool and picked the pad back up.

>  
> 
> _Well, maybe he’d understand. Don’t suppose I’m going to have the chance to ask him, though._
> 
> _The Alliance was the most important part of my life for years. Now the only thing that matters is saving as many people as possible and protecting the people you love. Shepard’s more important than regs, now. They need every soldier they can get, and I’m the right man for the job. And if anyone cares, when this is over, I’ll face the music._

 

He copied the file to his omni-tool ‘Personal Log’ folder. The redrafted reply to Col Vedirus he wrote next was shorter, less paranoid, and certainly less revealing.

Next on his to-do list—interrupted by last night’s migraine—was the stack of briefings from Alliance Command. But only one looked interesting enough to read before his shift officially started. Shepard and he had both been sent the initial briefing on the Leviathan project, and Kaidan skimmed through the report:

 

> _…weapon or technology capable of rendering a Reaper harmless…_
> 
> _…while the Reaper itself has been known as the ‘Leviathan of Dis’, the term has instead come to refer to the alleged intelligence that overcame the Reaper…_
> 
> _…Doctor Bryson believes he has located definitive evidence of the existence of…_
> 
> _…SSV Normandy, being exceptionally fast and having stealth capabilities…_
> 
> _…Dr. Bryson asserts the discovery is crucial to the war effort…_
> 
>  

Kaidan checked the time again, stood up and hovered at the top of the steps. Shepard lay sprawled out, mouth open wide, a crescendo of a light snore every time he opened his jaws. His alarm would be going off soon.

Kaidan stepped out of the cabin, still speaking in a low voice even after the hatch had closed.

“EDI?”

“Yes, Major?” the mechanical voice was soft as Kaidan’s.

“Let’s make sure we give the elcor team we’re transporting our ETA for the Citadel. We want to make sure someone’s there to get them settled when they disembark. We’ll be docking long enough for Shepard to meet with Dr. Bryson about the Leviathan project, so let’s keep the repairs strictly necessary, but we should have time to fully refuel.”

“Aye, Major.”

“Oh, and EDI,” he lowered his voice even more, “could you do me a personal favor?”

“I would be happy to help however I can.”

“I’ve… uh… been thinking about my dad a lot lately… and… well it’s not important. I’ve been thinking about this book series I’d like to find, and I really cannot remember the name for the life of me. Do you think you could help me look for that?”

“I will have to see if I can ‘squeeze’ it into my busy schedule.”

Kaidan blinked. “Oh. Well I mean don’t—“

“That was a joke.” the voice deadpanned. “Approximately 12% of my processing power is devoted to regular operations aboard. It will not be taxing to assist you.”

“Well… thanks. Umm, so they’re old Earth books, twentieth century, I remember one of them is about this man telling this story and… there’s something about a snowball? And there’s this rock he keeps for years for some reason? Sorry, it’s not much to go on.”

“It is a ‘starting point.’”

“Thank you, EDI.” Kaidan walked back through the hatch. Just as he was finishing up his Spectre report, the second alarm went off. Shepard stirred when the buzzing began again, louder than the first time. His limbs tensed and he looked around the room, the darkness. Kaidan rushed down to shut off the alarm, then walked to meet Shepard at the side of the bed in his waking confusion.

“K-Kaidan? Get back in bed, you’re… let me get you…” Shepard slurred, rubbed his eyes. Kaidan put a hand on Shepard’s chest to steady him.

“It’s okay, Shepard. I’m okay.”

“Mrff ‘you sure?”

“I’m sure.” Kaidan’s thumb smoothed a wrinkle in Shepard’s uniform shirt.

“Mmmm. Good.” Shepard shut his eyes and eased back into the pillow, laying his hand on Kaidan’s. “But you’re really feeling alright?”

“Yeah, bit of throbbing behind the eyes, pulled a muscle in my neck. But okay.” His tone was placid, even though his voice was strained.

“Kaidan… I had no idea. Those migraines...” Shepard sat up, coming fully awake, his lips pursed in in an expression of worry. He touched the side of Kaidan face, eyes searching. Kaidan looked away, but smiled.

“Yeah. I’m sorry you had to go through that last night,” he said, lightly touching the hand against his face.

Shepard quirked an eyebrow, “You’re kidding, right?”

“You know what I mean. It’s never nice to spring a… somewhat serious medical condition on someone you care about. Thanks for staying with me,” he said, smile changing the arc of Shepard’s thumb as it traced along his cheek-bone.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to help you. Watching you in pain like that… it looked awful.”

Kaidan chuckled, “It was, Shepard. But it was better with you here.”

“All I did was babble,” Shepard mumbled and looked away, but Kaidan gently blew into his ear, and the tickling sensation brought Shepard’s gaze back.

“I didn’t see it as babbling.” Kaidan smiled warmly, pressing a kiss into Shepard’s palm. Shepard blinked hard.

“I—was worried you couldn’t understand what I was saying. Between the pain and all that aphasia business…” Several emotions played across Shepard’s face when he trailed off, as if each expression would end his thought differently. Finally, eyes hopeful, he swallowed. “They’re things I needed to say. What…?”

“Let’s just say I heard everything I needed to hear, Shepard,” he assured. “And what I missed… I think I can figure out. We’ve got plenty of time.” He smiled, pressed his lips to Shepard’s. Ben returned the kiss gently, hesitating with the placement of his hand as he held Kaidan’s head. Kaidan sucked at Shepard’s lip, tracing the pout with his tongue. When he leaned down, pressing Shepard down into the mattress with the intensity of the kiss, Shepard raised himself up instead to wrap an arm around his waist, pulling Kaidan back down with him.

“Mmm,” Kaidan pulled back, hands running up Shepard’s arms as he stood, “I need to shower before my shift. Get some more sleep Shepard, I’ll reset your alarm.” Shepard stared in consternation, but the next moment he was rising off the bed as well.

“No, that’s alright, I should get some work done in the War Room before I conference with Hackett.” Shepard was already straightening his uniform.

“Come on, Shepard, I kept you up most of the night babysitting me. You’ve got six hours before you’re supposed to be up. Get some damn rest or you’re gonna burn out.” He put his hands on both Shepard’s shoulders, but the commander didn’t give any ground.

“I appreciate it Kaidan, but there’s a lot to get done in the War Room.” Shepard readjusted the buckle on his belt. Kaidan looked him over dourly, then gave a resigned sigh.

“Alright, far be it from me to stand between Commander Shepard and his work.”

Shepard smiled, and Kaidan pulled him in for a peck on the lips before they headed for the lift. When Shepard stepped in, Kaidan waved him on.

“I’ll take the next one, probably for the best if we aren’t seen stepping off the elevator together in the morning.”

Shepard stared after him for a moment, but finally nodded slowly. And so the day began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: takes place immediately before and immediately after the Geth Dreadnought mission. 
> 
> Visit Dr. Bryson on Citadel  
> Meet with Quarians  
> Geth Dreadnought


	6. The Difference between Duty and a Request

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard has been finding it harder to make objective decisions these days. The narrow escape from the geth dreadnought throws a few things into perspective for Kaidan and Shepard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has sex.

“Kaidan? Can I see you in the CIC, right away?” Shepard asked over the comms.

“ _Sure thing, on my way.”_

Shepard stood over the Galaxy Map, pulling his fingers together till the tiny system he was exploring expanded back into a holographic depiction of the whole galaxy. Entering a new set of coordinates, the map displayed a second course: a long route through a complicated web of Relays to the edge of the galaxy: geth space. The estimated travel time hovered over the destination, and Shepard frowned.

The sound of the lift opening seemed to pull him out of his thoughts, and when Kaidan stepped out Shepard immediately stepped down from the map and beckoned Kaidan over to the storage space in the aft-port of the CIC.

“Shepard, what’s up?” Kaidan asked softly, jostling into several crates in an effort to let both men stand somewhat comfortably in the small space.

“Remember the Leviathan project? I just got back from talking with Dr. Bryson.”

“Yeah? What’d he have to say?”

“He’s dead.”

“What?”

“His lab assistant shot him. I was right there, I never saw it coming.” Shepard’s eyes were downcast, angry, as if the body of Dr. Bryson were sprawled over the crates littering the floor of the storage space.

“Why would his lab assistant shoot him?” Kaidan asked, glancing out the storage space before gently placing a hand on Shepard’s arm.

“He says he was being controlled by something; the Leviathan. And I believe him. When I interrogated him, didn’t even know the doctor was dead. He was scared. Then, it was like Leviathan took him over again, told me something, then he slipped into a coma.”

“…what did he tell you?” Kaidan asked when Shepard shook his head.

“’Turn back, the darkness cannot be breached.’”

“Well, that’s cryptic.” Kaidan cracked a smile but Shepard didn’t follow suit. “So what now?”

“EDI and I tracked down one of Bryson’s field researchers, he was close to making a discovery the last time he reported in.” Shepard stared down at the major’s hand, then gently eased his arm out of Kaidan’s grasp, leaned against the bulkhead with a sigh.

“Let’s go get him.” Kaidan nodded sharply, distracted for a moment by Shepard’s pulling away.

“There’s one more thing.” Shepard closed his eyes, “I got a message from Tali. The quarians are mounting a full-scale invasion of geth-space to retake Rannoch.”

“When?”

“Any day.”

“…damn.” Kaidan folded his arms across his chest, leaning his weight to one side.

“When Hackett first gave me Bryson’s name I was in no rush. An ancient predator that can kill a Reaper could be a huge asset to this war. But it was a nyth. Now that I’ve seen proof of it, I want to get it on our side as quickly as possible.”

“…but the quarians… biggest fleet in the galaxy, about to be wiped out by the geth?”

Shepard nodded, “They’re a known quantity. They could help us take back Earth. We need that fleet if we want to win the war. It’s a numbers game. Or it should be.”

“But it isn’t?”

“…it’s also Tali.” Shepard rolled his head off the bulkhead and fixed Kaidan with a stare. Kaidan raised his eyebrows apologetically and rubbed the back of his neck, his weight shifting to the other foot. “It shouldn’t be about personal connections. This war is too important. If we don’t follow this Leviathan lead right now, the man we’re looking for could go off-world, get killed, disappear. And even with that possibility, I’m still considering abandoning it to help a friend.”

“If the quarians go toe to toe with the geth it’s gonna be extinction,” Kaidan retorted.

“And if I—“ he shook his head, “—if _we_ don’t make the right move, one species going extinct is going to be nothing compare to what the Reaper’s will do.”

“Shepard,” Kadain’s voice dropped even lower, husky beneath the throb of the Normandy’s systems, “this is a hard decision. But you’ve got plenty of tactical reasons for wanting to go to the quarian fleet, and you’re not wrong for adding ‘help Tali’ to that list. Just means you’re human.”

“I’m worried it’s the personal reasons driving me and not the tactical ones. With the personal reasons in there I can’t be sure how sound the tactical rationale is.”

“It’s… I… what do you wanna do, Shepard?”

Shepard stood quietly for a moment, when he leaned off the wall and crossed his arms, his elbows bumped Kaidan’s.

“Three years ago this wouldn’t have been a question. I have all the information I need to make a responsible command decision.  I wouldn’t have let my personal feelings stand in the way of the mission,” Shepard said, practically under his breath.

“What’s changed?” Kaidan’s asked with a smile. Shepard looked up, eyes soft when his gaze locked with Kaidan’s.

“I don’t want you to ever be in a position where your feelings for me jeopardize the mission,” he whispered. Kaidan looked down at his boots. It took him a few breaths, but when he looked up he nodded slowly.

“Alliance men, Shepard. We know the score, we know what needs to be done. Mission comes first. Always.”

 “Always.” Shepard nodded, fingers playing at his sleeve, exhaling through his nose all at once. “And I’m also sorry… I’m trying not to put you in any position that’ll compromise people’s view of you on this ship… if being seen with me…”

“…what?” Kaidan’s brow furrowed, “What, no, I…” he lowered his voice to a whisper, “I want this, Shepard. I meant that. Just… we have a lot of privilege and if it affects morale to see the commanding officers…” He trailed off.

Shepard stared a moment longer then smiled. He nodded slowly, and his posture stiffened again, shoulders squaring off boot-camp straight. “I appreciate the chat, Kaidan.”

“Well,” Kaidan said wryly, “that’s what your XO’s here for, _Commander_.” If Shepard caught the extra emphasis on his title, he didn’t show any sign.

Shepard reached out to brush a hand across Kaidan’s shoulder, but it made only the smallest touch before pulling away with an awkward smile. He glanced out into the CIC, but all the technicians were busy at work and paid the senior officers no mind.

“Okay.” Kaidan smiled, “Let’s do this.”

When Shepard stepped out of the storage space and returned to the con, he opened a channel with Joker.

“Joker, I’m sending you a new course-plot. We’re going to help Tali out.”

++

The idea was to rush to the quarians’ aid, convince them _not_ to engage in an offensive with the geth, and hopefully sign them on to bring their technical expertise to the Crucible project. Then, they could get on the hunt for Leviathan and Dr. Garneau.

Nothing went according to plan: the quarians were already invested in the invasion. There would be no convincing them to not commit their forces.  The Reapers already had their hand in the conflict: upgrading the geth with a signal being transmitted throughout the Veil via a geth dreadnought. With the quarian fleet insistent on engaging one way or another, the crew was committed to at least helping disrupt the signal. After infiltrating the dreadnought, it seemed the Normandy would be invested in this conflict until it resolved: one way or another. Tali, now a quarian admiral and dignitary, was aboard. They’d rescued Legion, and both sides saw Shepard and the Normandy as the key to their victory. In the aftermath of their escape from the geth, the whole crew was moving slowly, exhausted at their duty stations. Even Shepard hadn’t customarily stripped down to a t-shirt in his cabin, sitting on his couch with heavy eyelids still in his full uniform.

A door chime sounded in Shepard’s cabin. He looked up from his data-pad, the couch creaking beneath him when he tilted his head to listen. There was another chime.

“…I have a door chime?” He shrugged, set the data-pad down on the table and stood to smooth his slacks before sitting back down.

“Come on in, it’s open.” He looked up, the hatch’s holo-ring was red, “Umm. ‘Enter’?” Nothing. “EDI, open the door, please.”

“I think you may wish to get this yourself, Commander.” The light mechanical voice sounded through the comms with just a hint of humor. Shepard rolled his eyes and jogged up to the door, which opened automatically once he was close enough.

“Ah. Hey Shepard. Just thought I’d chat a bit about the mission. Didn’t say much when you came by the Obs Lounge… and… thought I’d maybe come see you. Didn’t wake you up did I?” Kaidan stood at the threshold for just a second before stepping into the captain’s cabin, searching Shepard’s eyes. Shepard grinned wide, taking a step back from the hatch. The door slid shut behind him and the two men drifted together to the aquarium. Kaidan folded his arms over his chest. Then the very next moment dropped his hands to his hips. Then he had a hand on the wall. The final stance he assumed was forcedly casual.

“Umm, no.” Shepard said at last when Kaidan quirked an eyebrow. “I’m still letting my adrenaline settle a little bit from that chase out of the dreadnought.” Shepard scanned his eyes up Kaidan’s body, the way his weight shifted, pulling the fabric of his pants taut against his thigh. Even after spending a mission crumpled in his locker, Kaidan’s uniform still looked pressed, fabric smooth around the contours of his chest.

“Yeah, I can relate to that. Meeting a friendly geth of your acquaintance, almost getting blown up by the Admirals we’re risking our necks to help,” Kaidan replied, eyes locked on the opened top button of Shepard’s collar. His face was just a little flush, warm eyes drinking up the light from the aquarium. “It really makes you think.”

“Yeah.” Shepard breathed. “Really makes you think.” He watched Kaidan’s face, the way his mouth flirted with grinning or not.

Up against the aquarium glass, Kaidan looked out of place compared to his normal haunt in front of an expansive star-field. The hazy light cast his features in a different way, and he was a fixed point around which everything within the aquarium seemed to turn about.

“Of course, between the two of us we’re never short on near-death experiences to bring things into… focus…” Kaidan licked his lips, his eyes on Shepard’s, gaze occasionally inching down to watch the rise and fall of his chest.

The holo-ring on the cabin door changed from green to red.

“Kaidan—“ Shepard exhaled a ragged breath and his arms were around Kaidan’s hips. The two kissed forcefully, Kaidan’s lower lip slackening when Shepard ran his tongue along it. He pressed into Kaidan’s body, moaning around Kaidan’s tongue at the warmth when their chests met.

Kaidan’s kiss was patient, reveling in every caress Shepard’s mouth would yield to him. Shepard, though, pawed at his back with an urgency: a wildness unleashed from weeks of waiting and years of wondering. He made a low roar when Kaidan’s slow hands pulled their bodies tight together, the depths of his dark eyes an undeniable invitation.

“You’re excited, huh?” Kaidan panted, so close to Shepard’s face that when he licked his own lip he tasted Shepard’s, too. Shepard’s only response was to swing the two of them around, manhandling Kaidan up into the air. Kaidan bucked in surprise, thighs pulled tight into Shepard’s sides when Ben lifted him onto the desk. The data-pads there scattered onto the floor.

Shepard had Kaidan’s arms wrapped around his waist, his shoulders. The warm scent of soap and a bite of sweat was all around him when he buried his face in Kaidan’s chest to catch his breath. The taste of Kaidan’s skin lingered on his lips as he kissed up the goosebumps that appeared on his sensitive collarbone.

“I’ve wanted to do this in the Obs Lounge,” he shivered when Kaidan stroked down his ass, “every night.”

He was hard in his uniform and ground into Kaidan to prove it. Kaidan moaned, took Shepard’s face in his hands to pull him in for a kiss. When they were both breathless again, he pulled back.

“Decorum, Commander.” Kaidan smirked, crossed his legs behind Shepard’s back and pressing his own hardness into Shepard’s belly. Shepard nipped after him, but Kaidan gave a mock cry and leaned away.

“No more duty shifts.” Shepard growled and rolled his hips forward. “No more migraines.” He locked Kaidan in a feral stare as his teeth raked over his lover’s lip. “No more teasing.”

Kaidan’s mouth quirked into a smile and palmed Shepard’s ass with both hands. His fingers slid into Shepard’s pants to tug at the waistband of his briefs. “Maybe just a little more teasing.” He murmured, licking the shine off his lips. Shepard laughed, but the minute he began unbuttoning his uniform shirt, Kaidan took his hands. “No! _I_ wanna do that.”

Shepard grinned, chest heaving while nimble fingers exposed his torso to the waist. Kaidan was too eager to even pull the shirt out of his trousers, instead pulling it open immediately. He bypassed Shepard’s undershirt, hooking the hem and collar behind Shepard’s neck, sleeves pulling tight along his shoulders.

“God, Shepard,” He breathed hotly, leaning into Shepard’s neck. “I’ve wanted to see you like this since…” He never bothered finishing, let his fingertips trail down the crease between Shepard’s pectorals, lightly fingering the dog-tags rattling against his skin.

The commander, his chest and stomach framed by his open uniform, let out a whimper. Kaidan’s mouth sucked at the center of his chest. Palms pressed flat against his body, he followed the curve of his ribs into the heat of his open uniform, pushing the fabric out of his way. Ben groaned.

“Bed.”

It was a battlefield command. He clutched at Kaidan, pulled him off the desk.  He tugged desperately at Kaidan’s belt, fingers too distracted by the surging heat beneath for him to manage the mechanism. He palmed under Kaidan’s length instead, was rewarded with a gasp and a desperate kiss.

They orbited each other as they kissed, tumbled awkwardly down the stairs, knees knocking together. Shepard finally popped the belt with a triumphant snicker, and Kaidan’s pants slid to the ground. Immediately, Kaidan almost tripped and Shepard had to catch him. They giggled against each other’s lips, pulled the pants up around Kaidan’s hip bones—

—just in time to careen into the holo-haptic interface.

Shepard cussed underneath his laughter, rolled his eyes at himself, “Very smooth.” He couldn’t take his hands off Kaidan, as if to memorize the way the muscles on his back flowed into his hips, or the way the sinews in his thigh became the trembling muscles in his taut stomach.

Kaidan just laughed, tangling his fingers in Shepard’s hair, “I bet you could be smooth,” he rolled his hips, “but you seem like a man who prefers to be _rough_.”

Shepard cussed. He yanked Kaidan’s shirts off roughly, stopping to nibble the blush that came into Kaidan’s ear when his body was suddenly on display. His heartbeat against Kaidan’s, the way Kaidan’s breath hitched when he sucked at the sensitive skin behind his ear.

There was no way to have Kaidan all at once: his heat, his heartbeat, the way he whimpered when Shepard’s lips kissed down his body, when his tongue traced beneath his heaving chest. But Shepard’s body surged against the other man, hardcoding as much as possible to memory, determined to try.

Kaidan made a low rumbling deep in his chest when Shepard took the flesh above his collarbone between his teeth. His hips surged forward, Kaidan catching his ass to hold them together, pupils blown with pleasure, hard against Kaidan. There was a smoky moment where the men stood breathing hard, heaving stomachs fighting to fill the space between them, where a bead of sweat that ran down Kaidan’s chest ended up tumbling down into Shepard’s waistband instead. Kaidan’s next kiss made Ben moan, just for a moment. Then the moan became a growl.

He pushed Kaidan forward, tumbled him onto the bed. Kaidan started laughing, dark eyes hot and challenging as the two vied for position on the mattress. Shepard playfully pinned him, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth.

Kaidan wasn’t finished. Unable to roll his hips or crane his neck high enough for a kiss, he bit down on Shepard’s dog tags rattling above his face. The act and Kaidan’s look got an unconscious hip thrust out of Shepard. Kaidan pressed up and flipped him.

Shepard’s groan was equal parts frustration and delight. Kaidan kissed down his chest, used his tongue to tickle the ribs exposed with each of Shepard’s strained inhalations. Shepard’s hips bucked into his touch when he pulled his fly down, not bothering to unbuckle his belt. He chuckled triumphantly when he finally wrapped his fingers around Shepard’s cock.

Shepard groaned, spread his legs, pried his eyes open to meet Kaidan’s. His lover smirked up at him, thumb teasing over the crown. He couldn’t hold the gaze when Kaidan’s hot fist pulled the skin back. Shepard balled his fist above his head. But when he felt Kaidan’s breath on the tip, his eyes flew open.

“Hang… oh god… just… Kaidan… wait…” He gulped at the air and pushed Kaidan away. But even as Kaidan pulled away, Shepard’s hips bucked with the lost sensation.

“Shepard? Is everything okay?” He placed an unsteady hand on Shepard’s chest, slid up the bed to settle next to him. “I… I’m sorry? If I’ve been moving kinda fast… but from the way you’ve been _looking_ at me the past couple days… I thought…?”

When he opened his eyes again, Shepard’s stare was soft though unsure.

“No, _I’m_ sorry,” he sighed, tilted his head up for a kiss. Kaidan nuzzled into his neck. “I’ve had so many fantasies about you. I usually dive into things like this, but I want to get it right…”

He touched Kaidan’s face tenderly, eyes almost guilty as his hand trekked lower to feel the hardness of his chest hot beneath his fingertips.

“So you’ve never… or… never with…?” Kaidan took his hand, quirking a single eyebrow as if testing Shepard’s limit as he guided the hand lower still on his body.

“No! I have. A lot. Trust me. Plenty.” Shepard shook his head. “But it was sex, and it was great and rough and _physical_ , and as long as I trusted who I was with that was all I really needed to go for it…”  he trailed off when Kaidan’s expression changed.

“…and you don’t trust me?” The words hung in the air. Shepard swallowed.

“…I don’t _just_ trust you.”

“…oh.” The hurt softened in Kaidan’s eyes. The corner of his lip slowly curled up. “I’m sure about this, Shepard, and I want this.” Kaidan shifted till he could lay his body fully on top of Shepard’s, heartbeat to heartbeat. Shepard’s cock was still straining between his legs, Kaidan’s weight grinding down into him. “I want _you._ ” He claimed Shepard’s mouth in a deep kiss, moaning when Shepard’s hips came off the bed to meet his thrust.

“I want this too. Want you. Want to be this for you,” Shepard murmured between each snap of Kaidan’s hips, gasping finally at the feel of Kaidan’s briefs against his sensitive shaft.

“Good.” With a quick peck, he pushed himself up so he straddled Shepard’s torso. “So, you used to fantasize about me, huh?” Kaidan wore a wicked grin, and Shepard was momentarily awed staring up the naked chest of the man pinning him to the bed.

 “Mhm.” Shepard grunted when Kaidan fingers fished back into his fly, wrapped around him.

“What did you fantasize about doing with me?” Kaidan smirked, one side of his body pulled taut as he reached behind him into Shepard’s pants, the definition in his abs rising and falling as his breaths quickened.

“I imagined bending you over the table in the mess.” Shepard bit his lip at the sensation of Kaidan’s fingers. Kaidan laughed.

“Well, okay, what else?” Kaidan pushed his body into Shepard’s touch, fingers idly playing with his musculature.

“Thought about you taking me on my back in the Mako?” Shepard tried. Kaidan guffawed again.

“You’re just Mr. Foreplay, aren’t you?” He rolled his eyes with a smile. “What else, blow job in the airlock, too?”

“…oh god.”

Kaidan laughed so hard he leaned forward on Shepard’s chest, let Shepard’s tongue slide into his mouth when he stooped for a kiss. His dog tags bumped gently against Shepard’s chin. When he leaned back, he slipped his tags off, then beckoned Shepard to tip his head up so he could remove his tags as well. Kaidan took both in his hand, coiling them around his fingers and setting them on the bedside table: Kaidan Alenko and Benjamin Shepard, chains wrapped together, tags resting side by side.

“Shepard,” Kaidan gave throaty chuckle, rutting his straining briefs into Shepard’s body when he leaned down, “you are an expert tactician. I _know_ you put a little more detail into those fantasies of yours.”

Shepard breathed with his chest and shoulders, grinned when Kaidan’s finger’s trailed across his collarbone.

“I would’ve gotten you naked, up against a wall. Push your hands up above your head and hold them there.” His breath hitched when Kaidan leaned down, running his hands up Shepard’s sides, under his arms, lifting them above Shepard’s head and pinning them into the pillow. He grinned down at the way Shepard’s bulging arms framed his face, the stubble on his jaw a steely blue in the low light, mouth open with his deep breathing.

“I would’ve kissed you,” Shepard continued, breaths erratic as Kaidan leaned in, adding quickly as their lips were about to come together: “—hard.” And Kaidan did, looming over him, lips already red and slick from their earlier foreplay, tongue thick in Shepard’s mouth. “Want to make noises come out of you you’ve never heard before.” Shepard finished when they pulled apart panting for air.

“Then what?” It was a whisper, and Kaidan kissed along Shepard’s throat, tracing up the cords of Shepard’s bicep.

“Your body… unf.” Shepard moaned when Kaidan sucked at the sensitive skin beneath his arm. “Your chest. I’d seen it in that tight uniform shirt, seen you in your thermal layer, but I never got a good view in the shower. I would’ve kissed your chest.” Kaidan left wet kisses on the hard muscle of Shepard’s chest. “I would’ve done…” he trailed off when Kaidan’s hand wrapped around his whole length again, nibbling against Shepard’s nipple. “…I can’t think, Kaidan… unf, don’t stop…”

“Keep talking, Shepard. Tell me what you’ve would’ve done.”

“I… would’ve done—“ His whole body arched off the bed when Kaidan’s tongue traced the curve of his chest from beneath his arm all the way to his breast bone. When he released Shepard’s arms, they wrapped around Kaidan’s head to hold his face to his body. “I would’ve done whatever you wanted. I want to know what you like, what you want.” Shepard gasped. Kaidan gently wriggled out from Shepard’s embrace, brought himself off the bed and pushed his pants down, taking his own hard cock in hand to lower his briefs. He pulled at his boots till they came off, stepped out of his clothes and knelt back on the bed naked, predatory.

“And you? Would you just be standing there in your uniform?” He held Shepard’s hips to the bed kissing Shepard’s navel, the stubble on his cheek brushing against the head of Shepard’s cock. Shepard heaved up.

“Me?” Shepard writhed beneath him.

“You.” Kaidan grinned mischievously, kneeled between Shepard’s legs and began unlacing his boots. Shepard tugged his uniform shirt out of his pants, pulled it over his head and threw it to the floor. By the time he had his belt unbuckled, Kaidan was ready to pull his pants and briefs off, leaving Shepard laying naked, spread-eagle on the bed.

Kaidan kissed his way up his body, hard and slick when Shepard rolled their hips together. They kissed and Shepard’s arms wrapped all the way around him, hands exploring Kaidan’s back. The way stroking his shoulder blades made Kaidan shiver, or brushing his fingers in the slick crevice of Kaidan’s back made him push his ass up into Shepard’s other hand. The wisp of hair above Kaidan’s tail bone that made him sigh and laugh when Shepard teased it.

“Would you have done this?” There was a gleam in Kaidan’s eye as he slid out of Shepard’s arms and down his body. He pressed his lips to Shepard’s base, making Shepard buck with his hot breath and a tease of his tongue.

“…yes… thought about that all the time.” Shepard’s hands trembled, holding Kaidan’s arms. Kaidan lapped up to the tip up Shepard’s shaft.

“Tell me. What would you do?” Kaidan took the head between his lips, tongue playing around the crown.

“Would’ve… I would’ve…” Shepard stuttered with every slow inch Kaidan pulled into his mouth. “Want to taste you. Want to take you deep… your hands on the back of my neck… pushing me down…”

Kaidan took his arms, then, guiding them to his head. Fingers tangled in the dark hair, Shepard bit back a cry as he sank into Kaidan’s throat. Keeping his fist wrapped around his base, Kaidan teased his tongue around the head of Shepard’s cock before experimenting with taking him deep again. It wasn’t long before his experiments paid off, and in minutes Shepard was growling his need to come. He twisted on the sheets, locking his legs around his lover and spilling over the edge with a strangled gasp.

After, within the space of two short breaths, Shepard was already leaning up, lunging to grapple Kaidan up into his arms, turn him over on the bed. Even as Kaidan coughed and brushed the tears out of his eyes smiling, Shepard rubbed a thumb at the corner of Kaidan lips, plunging his tongue into Kaidan’s mouth.  

“Kaidan… I wanna do that… let me…” He huffed, hands still insistent even as his legs trembled with the force of his climax. He kneeled between Kaidan’s legs, but Kaidan surged up into his lap, taking Shepard’s chin in his hands, crushing their lips together as he ground into hard ridges of Shepard’s stomach, slick with sweat and a soft spread of hair. “Please… let me…” Shepard muttered between kisses.

“You will,” Kaidan gasped, eyes screwing shut tight, “You will, Shepard. I just can’t… I just gotta…”

Kaidan pulled Shepard into him sharply. Trembling at the edge, he took himself in hand between their bodies and bit down on his lip. The moan he made was lost in Shepard’s mouth.

Kaidan became boneless, braced against Shepard, and Shepard rolled them over till Kaidan lay, panting on the bed. Shepard held Kaidan tightly as the other man shuddered and whimpered for minutes while his orgasm subsided, shushing him gently and swearing Kaidan looked so beautiful when he came. When he was still on the bed again, Shepard gently took a softening Kaidan in his palm, but he arched off the bed at the touch and laughingly batted Shepard’s hand away.

Shepard used the moment to pick his briefs off the floor and clean both of them up, smiling when Kaidan let himself be handled to allow Shepard access to wipe him clean.

He slid up next to Kaidan on the bed and Kaidan rested his head on his chest. “Shepard that was… that was great.” Kaidan lightly kissed his chest and rubbed Shepard’s body.

Shepard stroked down Kaidan’s stomach, “I have imagined what that would feel like for so long…”

Kaidan chuckled deep in his throat, “I like the things you imagine doing to me.”

Shepard leaned in to kiss Kaidan, “I… I’m sorry I didn’t return the favor.”

“I’m not worried about it.” Kaidan replied. “I plan on doing everything with you, Shepard.”

“Everything, huh?” Shepard raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, everything.” He quirked an eyebrow, “I’m not so experienced with men though so… we just might need to take it slow when the time comes.”

“You won’t need to be slow with me,” Shepard whispered, bending down for a wet kiss. “And you did great, you made me feel so good.”

“You sweet talker,” Kaidan grinned. Shepard squeezed him as a slight blush rose into his cheeks as Kaidan leaned up to kiss Shepard’s throat. “I’ll get better. When I find someone I want to be with, I make sure it’s important. And when something’s important to me, I make sure to get lots of practice.” He kissed along the jaw line, “It’s just not often I find someone I really want to be with.”

“I remember you saying that.”

“Oh? And when did I say that?” He eased up to let Shepard slip an arm behind his back.

“Back on the Normandy, when you were telling me about BAaT. It was one of the first conversations where you actually talked to me like a person and not your CO. It was worth remembering.” He smiled sheepishly, “I was flirting with you—first and last time till the other day—and asked if you and the other BAaT recruits ever fooled around at Jump Zero.”

Kaidan snorted, “That was… you were flirting with me?”

“Wasn’t obvious, huh?”

“I think three years ago I didn’t know you _could_ flirt.” Kaidan nibbled softly at Shepard’s ear.

“Well, I’d be disappointed that I had misread your response if we weren’t lying naked in my bed right now.” Shepard grinned and pulled Kaidan in closer.

“’Misread?’”

“I thought I was coming on strong, I said ‘plenty of time to fool around then’ and you said ‘I’m not the sort to do that kind of thing lightly, Commander.’ At the time, I thought you saw right through me: knew I was just trying to get in your pants.”

“And that was the end of that, huh?”

Shepard shrugged, “Straight-arrow like you would probably be disgusted by a commander breaking fraternization regs. I felt like I ran off my big mouth and jeopardized my chances at getting to really know my Lt, and knew that I probably should stifle my attraction to you so it didn’t get in the way of you respecting me as a by-the-book commander.”

“Damn, Shepard.” Kaidan laughed, laying his head against Shepard’s chest, “Risking court-martial to help you steal the Normandy didn’t convince you that I was committed to you as more than just your Lt?”

“All that happened later. I guess we’d settled into a rhythm. I had put the hormones away,” Shepard said clinically.

“You were pretty much all work on that mission.”

“…maybe so,” He said quietly, letting his chin rest against Kaidan’s forehead.

“I guess it is what it is, huh?” Kaidan leaned up, scooched higher in Shepard’s arms until the two men lay with their foreheads touching, gently dozing against the pillow.

“Doesn’t matter, look at us now?”

“I think it matters. No one gets to where they are without taking the road they did. Who knows what might’ve happened. But what did happen brought us to this moment.” Kaidan’s voice was soft.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about the choices I’ve made lately,” Shepard muttered, stifling a yawn. “Not something I usually do: thinking back like that. But with the war… and now we’re stuck in this damn quarian conflict, and meanwhile the trail on Leviathan is going cold.”

“Shepard,” Kaidan said, voice dripping with playful disdain, “the war’s gonna wait. And you didn’t make the wrong choice. Leviathan’s gonna wait. We’re here now.” He kissed Shepard sweetly, and Shepard’s eyes closed, head sinking into the pillow.

“Yeah, alright. I can get behind that.” Shepard smiled, his voicing slurring with sleepiness. He didn’t even open his eyes when Kaidan gently kissed him again. But the next moment his side was cold and he opened his eyes to see Kaidan sliding to the side of the bed. “Where are you going?”

“I figured I’d let you sleep, you need it and you don’t get enough of it.” He watched as Kaidan stretched his back, his naked form glowing in the soft light of the room before responding.

“Stay.”

“Is that an order, Commander?” Kaidan grinned, scratching an itch just above a purple love-bite Shepard had left on his chest.

“A request, Kaidan.”

Slowly, Kaidan crawled back into bed, pulling the sheet up behind him, settling into Shepard’s open arms. The two men murmured soft thank-you’s and goodnights and both fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: 
> 
> The calm before the storm in the geth/quarian conflict. Kaidan talks about his time on Omega.
> 
> Invite Tali Up to Cabin,


	7. The Difference between Stealing a Gun and Stealing Food

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan tells Shepard a little about his time before joining the Alliance, specifically, how he ended up on Omega and what he did there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've attempted to be aggressively faithful to every scrap and hint of canon in this story. But I will admit to fashioning a headcanon history for Kaidan Alenko that diverges from the implications within the canon here and there, rather than the canon itself. In my opinion, Tovaras' 'Sentinel' is about as well-thought out as a Kaidan Alenko headcanon gets, so I feel worse about not just copy/pasting that in.
> 
> Hopefully this first take on Kaidan's time in Omega will be an interesting bit for you to read. Thank you for sticking with this series!

There was no way the Normandy could leave the system with the entire quarian fleet poised on the brink of destruction, but there was nothing they could do until Legion had finished the intel on the geth bases on Rannoch. So they waited.

 It had been a static day of preparation. With Shepard in command, the Normandy seldom ever sat in one place for long. Legion had been bonding with the crew, as had Admiral Raan. Joker and EDI had already planned the route to Mahavid to locate Dr. Garneau and the Leviathan project, but with the spare time, they’d recalculated the Relay jumps about 15 times. At this point, they were shaving minutes off the journey, rather than hours.

Shepard had explained to Admiral Hackett that assisting in resolving this conflict would bring either the geth or the quarians into the war effort on Earth’s behalf. Fortunately, Hackett hadn’t questioned it. Shepard had let Kaidan explain it to the Council.

Mostly, though, there was a lot of waiting.

“I’m going out of my mind here, Shepard.” Kaidan sat in one of the chairs near Shepard’s bed, drumming his fingers on the table, surveying the chessboard with a consternated look.

“We’ve got 7 hours before Legion will have anything for us to go on.” Shepard was manipulating the holo-haptic interface across the room, setting new parameters to repair the latest breaches in his armor in preparation for the next mission.

“Maybe I should just get my armor on now, make sure I’m ready ASAP once the data’s compiled.” Kaidan punctuated the thought with a few quick four-count beats on the tabletop with the tips of his fingers

“If there’s one thing you can count on from Legion, it’s that his estimates are correct to the minute.”

“Legion, yeah.” Kaidan’s lips curled into a smirk. “So, he’s really taken a shine to you, huh Shepard?” Kaidan teased.

“You mean the piece of my armor?”

“Yeah.”

Shepard laughed, “Not the first fan to play N7. Remember Conrad Verner?”

“Hmm. Conrad? Conrad…” His fingers thudded rapidly against the table as he thought. The noise seemed to distract Shepard as he switched the interface to attend to his gauntlets.

“Back on the Citadel, always wanted pictures of me to send home to his wife?”

“Oh yeah! That was…” Kaidan laughed, running his fingers through the holographic interface on the chess-board. “That was really something. Your first taste of celebrity.”

“Yeah…” Shepard chuckled to himself, programming the fabricators to shave a fraction of a millimeter of armor off the index and ring finger on a pair of new Rosenkov gauntlets. With how gnarled his fingers were, new gauntlets always needed a number of adjustments before they were ready to perform at the level Shepard demanded. “Ran into him on Illium last year, dressed up in some pretty convincing N7 heavy armor, pretending to be me.”

“You’re kidding!”

Shepard nodded. “Guess he thought he was playing galactic policeman.”

“Only on Illium would you find something like that going on.” Kaidan chuckled, moving a pawn forward, the holographic side of the chessboard automatically responding by moving the green knight. While he idly surveyed the board, he drummed his fingers faster on the table. “Where was this, Nos Astra? As if Conrad Verner could stop any of the criminals the paperwork hadn’t already taken care of!”

“You’ve been to Illium, Kaidan?” He widened the second knuckle on the right index finger of the gauntlet.

“Mmm, yeah. Long time ago.” Kaidan’s finger-drumming slowed, he moved another pawn forward, directly into position to be captured by the holographic knight. The board moved the holographic knight to capture, then flashed indicating the pawn should be removed. Kaidan stared instead, resuming his steady finger tapping.

“Illium, Omega: there’s a lot I don’t know about you, Kaidan…” Shepard looked back over his shoulder when Kaidan didn’t respond. Kaidan merely shook his head.

“Yeah, and it’s a lot you’re not gonna hear tonight.” He smiled lightly, gave a wink when Shepard’s head swiveled around. “You’ve been dragging all day, you need sleep.”

“And you don’t?”

“I do, but if I don’t make an appearance in my own bunk once in a while… well…”

Shepard closed the interface and walked over, sitting on the bed across from his chair. “’Well’ what?”

Kaidan smiled weakly, there was a hint of challenge in Shepard’s voice. “Told you, Shepard. Just trying to not rub our rank and privilege in the crew’s face.”

“I know.” Shepard’s eyes shone, “But we do have seven hours to relax.” He leaned forward on his knees, which caused Kaidan to lean back into his chair, mouth twisting into a smile. He shook his head when Shepard waggled his eyebrows.

“Heh. Liara was in Nos Astra, right? Were you visiting her?” He tried to say with a straight face.

Shepard grinned and rolled his eyes at the diversion. “I was recruiting Thane to go through the Omega 4 relay.”

“Oh, Thane.” Kaidan lowered his eyes, and for a moment his fingers stopped drumming the table.

“Mhm.”

“You know, we spent a lot of time together, the two of us. He came by my room pretty often at Huerta. I was going out of my mind with boredom.” The word ‘boredom’ was punctuated by renewed finger-tapping.

“I can imagine the two of you getting along. You’re a pair of serious thinkers.” Shepard was watching Kaidan’s drumming fingers on the table with a thin-lipped smile.

“We did get along. He’d really seen the universe, y’know?”

Shepard nodded, stealing his gaze away from the table-top. “Yeah. He sure had.”

“And he had a code.” Kaidan tipped his head, “I could never imagine being a professional assassin; I couldn’t understand the way he justified it to himself, but his motivations for wanting to turn his life around and be there for his son… that was something I could respect. Family. Honor.”

“He was a good man.”

“He was. Made me think a little about my dad. Course that was before I found out my dad was… MIA. Dead, I suppose.” Kaidan managed eye-contact as he spoke, expression impassive.

“I’m… sorry Kaidan.”

“It’s okay. Hard to think about Thane without thinking about my dad.” He allowed himself a sigh. “Anyway: Thane. Got to know him pretty well. Told me all about the Collector base.”

“Really?” Shepard cocked an eyebrow.

“Well, the parts he was there for anyway. I don’t… I don’t think they were pleasant memories for him. But he saw how much I regretted… Well.” He shook his head, “He saw how much I wanted to know what it was like. The way he recalled _everything_ , could describe it so vividly. Made me feel like I’d been there.”

“Sounds like you two talked a lot. Did he tell you much about his past?” Shepard ran his hand over the blanket on the bed, taking in the feeling of the fabric as he listened.

“Yeah, only when he could tell I was getting frustrated with whatever game we were playing or a headache would come up. He’d tell me stories of places he’d seen. Incredible stories. Sometimes he’d talk until I drifted off to sleep,” Kaidan sighed, the drumming of his fingers slowing for a moment. “It’s a shame that all those memories had to die with him, the things he’d seen.”

“You’ve seen a lot too, Kaidan,” Shepard said softly.

Kaidan guffawed, “Yeah. Well. I think it was a little bit different for Thane. Messed up kid that I was after BAaT, I saw plenty. But it was all because I was trying to run away. Just wandering around. Thane didn’t go anywhere without a reason. That… gives you a different perspective, I think.”

“So Omega, Illium, you got around after BAaT.” Shepard stood as he spoke and helped Kaidan out of the chair; the two men laid down on the bed. Kaidan chuckled as he was positioned, Shepard’s head resting on his shoulder. Ben rested a hand on Kaidan’s stomach, feeling the starched uniform as if the texture would help him hard-code the history of Kaidan Alenko to memory.

“I know what you’re doing, Shepard, and we both need to be rested and sharp before we face those geth.” But he put his arm around Shepard’s shoulder anyway, pressing in close.

“Oh, I’m planning on sleeping. Just hoping to get a story before I do.” He grinned, tipped his head up to kiss the stubble beneath Kaidan’s chin. “Besides, if we talk in bed it’ll keep you from drumming your fingers on that damn table anymore.”

“Heh, guess I really am restless, huh?”

Shepard shrugged, “I know how you feel about the geth.” He turned his face to press against Kaidan’s chest.

Kaidan sighed, tucked Shepard’s head under his chin. He followed the path of a particularly colorful fish with his eyes, finally beginning with a deep breath. “When I got out of BAaT—I got back just a few weeks before I turned 18—I was angry. I was afraid of myself, but I felt restless, too. It sounds strange, but while I was at brain camp I felt like I had a purpose I could really get behind. I had been a freak since my biotics first showed up when I was… about four? At brain camp there were other people like me—biotics I mean—and we were being trained so that we could help mankind.” He huffed. “Or that’s what I thought anyway.”

“What happened when you left?”

“I sulked at my parent’s house in Vancouver. My dad did his best to lift my spirits, but I wasn’t really in a state to listen.”

“Because of Rahna?”

“Because of everything. My father had served a long career with the Alliance, never had to take a life. I was 17 and I had killed a man. A turian. My teacher. I was a murderer, and the only reason I wasn’t locked up was because the Alliance needed to sweep it under the rug to preserve diplomatic relations. Because of me, brain camp got shut down, and all those freaks that finally had a purpose got kicked back to earth.”

“That’s not fair.” Shepard thumbed at a button on the front of Kaidan’s uniform. “Hearing you talk about Jump Zero makes it sound like they would’ve been better off anywhere else.”

“Maybe.” Kaidan breathed deeply. “But to just give up on them? They were already afraid of me—like Rahna. I figured they’d be pissed at me for throwing away their chance to make something of themselves, too. Most of them… well, a lot of them, didn’t have family to go back to, y’know?” Kaidan brought his other arm to Shepard’s shoulder, holding him close.

Shepard stiffened at the touch, seemingly distracted for a moment from tracing the embroidered line across Kaidan’s chest. He relaxed almost immediately. “All the official news sites had everyone so afraid about biotics, yeah, I remember. People reported their neighbors.”

“Yeah, and it was especially bad for families. When Conatix wanted to ‘encourage’ a new biotic to join BAaT, they filled their parents’ heads with horror stories about our powers going out of hand and blowing up the block. Or talked about the powers making us go homicidal, losing our temper at dinner—stuff out of a horror vid. Usually didn’t take much more than that to get the parents to agree to send us off to Jump Zero. Two years later, when their kids got returned to them—able to actually maintain a biotic field? With intense headaches and all the stories of L2s that actually had gone crazy?” Kaidan shook his head, “A lot of kids got kicked to the curb. Some of those kids… my friends… they didn’t have homes to go back to once I got brain camp closed down.”

“It’s not your fault, Kaidan.” Shepard slid his hand around to squeeze Kaidan across the ribs. “Conatix did terrible things. If anyone’s to blame, it’s them.”

“Yeah. I know that.” He kissed the top of Shepard’s head, lingering for a moment in the clean scent. “But at the time? While other kids were going home to who-knows-what, my parents welcomed me back.”

“You’re lucky to have them, Kaidan.”

“Yeah. I didn’t repay them so well though. Soon as I turned 18 I told them one of my friends from brain camp invited me to visit him in Singapore for a few weeks. They thought it might get me to stop moping. I remembered Reggie was from Singapore, but I hadn’t heard from him since I left. It was all a lie.” He rubbed Shepard’s shoulder, then stretched the arm back behind his head, pulling his uniform taut beneath Shepard’s fingers. “Once I got to Singapore, I got a job at the space-port moving cargo. Sent my folks a letter, told them I had decided to get a job and stay there for a while. They were pretty upset and asked me to come home, said they would come get me. I yelled at them, told them off. Told them I needed to be abroad. They were hurt, but they respected the decision.”

Kaidan shrugged a little, suppressing a yawn. Shepard used the break to adjust his body and relieve the pressure in his lower back already radiating down to his hip. He ended up perpendicular to Kaidan, laying his head on the other man’s stomach, rising and falling with his deep breaths. This time, his hand found Kaidan’s.

“I ignored their calls for a while.” Kaidan continued, “The next time I talked to them was an hour before I boarded a freighter off world. They were furious, but I didn’t bother to read more than the first line of the letter they sent me.”

“Why did you go off world?”

“At the time?” He chuckled mirthlessly. “I guess I needed to see what the galaxy was like. When I read all those books as a kid about the hero going into space and finding… justice… something bigger than himself… I believed all of that. Not after Vyrnnus, though.” He punctuated each word, laughing to himself, but by the time he was breathing normally again, it seemed he needed to rally to continue. “So, I figured if the universe wasn’t what I thought it was, I would go find out what it was really like. I guess part of me hoped I would find some of that romantic view still in me.”

“I’d say it is.” Shepard smiled, drew his gaze up Kaidan’s chest to meet his smile.

Kaidan laughed, “I appreciate that. And I think you’re right, for all the good it does me. But when I got a job moving cargo on an interstellar transport, I didn’t really know that yet. Getting that back… took longer than losing it anyway. Fortunately no one on the crew found out I was a biotic.”

“On a cargo ship like that? They don’t care as long as the work gets done,” Shepard said, face incredulous.

“Oh no?” Kaidan screwed his mouth up and chuckled, “First day aboard, overheard a guy talking in the mess. He was from New Zealand, a mile away from the institution where they locked up most of the crazy L2s. I decided not to take my chances.”

“Ahhh.” Shepard nodded with a frown, “So what’d you do?”

“Traveled around for a while, seeing some things through the windows of the freighter, dozens of planets in just a few weeks. Seeing as much of each one as I could a few hours at a time in port. Finally made up my mind to jump ship next time we docked. That’s how I ended up on Omega.”

“That’s…” Shepard blinked, finger tracing the rough skin on the back of Kaidan’s hand. “I suppose there are worse places you can end up in the galaxy.”

“Probably one of the unluckiest choices I made in my life,” Kaidan guffawed. “Didn’t think I was gonna make it sometimes. Nobody outside the main port had ever seen a human before. It was really before we started getting out that far. Blue Suns hadn’t even made it far outta the Skyllian Verge.” He shook his head, eyes glassing over at the recollection. “I scavenged for weeks, which was hard. The vorcha moved in packs and had a lot more practice living in the shadows. Got in more than a few fights. Slept with a gun—well, had to _steal_ a gun first. I had seen a few krogan with the Blood Pack using biotics, and of course the asari, so when I tried to get work I showed off the fact that I was a biotic.” He trailed off with a groan.

“…and?”

“That ended up being a big mistake. If I thought people back on earth hated me for being a biotic, Omega was a wake-up call.”

“Why?” Shepard was taking each of Kaidan’s fingers in turn, smoothing up the length of each. “The rest of the galaxy’s been dealing with biotics for millennia; why do humans bother them so much?”

“Politics, maybe,” Kaidan said limply. “I suppose a lot of it has to do with the way humans were already seen at the time. The turians did a pretty good hatchet job on us with the rest of the galaxy during the First Contact War. And while asari are naturally biotic, humans had only had biotics for just over a decade. At best, people saw it as humanity trying to grab too much power too quickly: being sloppy with eezo cores, having accidents.”

“Guess we didn’t make such a great impression with the First Contact War either, huh?” Shepard said with a wry expression. Kaidan guffawed.

“Well, let’s just say plenty of stories came in from off-world traders that all the biotics on earth were being locked up and experimented on, fitted with faulty implants. Krogans, turians: they’d had eezo cores for centuries, it was natural that a handful of their children would begin developing abilities. And they’re both warriors: biotics might have been feared in their societies, but they were respected, too. Humans were just upstarts. So human biotics were horrifying. The turians and krogans thought we were being bred for war. I can’t say I blame them for their feelings now, but I resented the hell out of them at the time.”

“Even in a place like Omega, huh?”

“I even tried getting a job in one of the mines, but no one would hire me at first. Well, one foreman was desperate. Most of his crew had been killed in a mining accident a week earlier, and no one wanted to work that vein anymore—deep core eezo mining. It was a high pressure environment, the whole crew was vorcha except for me. The Pounders used mass effect fields to change the coefficient of gravity in the whole mine so they could hit with more force. The gravity, the heat… it was awful, and the pressure... wasn’t really fit for humans. Sometimes, I needed to activate my biotics just to stand up, or use a mass lowering field so I could catch my breath. I had them active most of the day, once I got good enough at it.”

“That’s an impressive feat.” Shepard’s eyebrow shot up.

“Wouldn’t want to put myself to the test with that again.” Kaidan squeezed the bridge of his nose with a smirk. “The migraines were the worst of my life… trying to defend myself during one of the really bad headaches…” He shook the memory away. “I hated having to hide.”

“What was the calorie consumption for that like?” Shepard asked, gently elbowing Kaidan back into the present.

“Mmm. I was hungry all the time. I had gotten used to using my biotics without much nutrient replenishment in brain camp; it was one of the most brutal things we’d done, and it killed or incapacitated more kids than the sparring matches did. I guess I did something similar with my students at Spec Ops. Huh. That’s a disturbing thought…” Kaidan bit his lip, brow furrowed.

“…but you didn’t kill anyone. That’s probably an important difference.”

Kaidan laughed, shrugged. “Anyway, the markets on Omega all ratcheted up their prices whenever I came by. Maybe because I was human, maybe because I was a biotic. Doesn’t matter now. The mine foreman thought I was going to spend my whole paycheck on Red Sand, used that as an excuse to try to avoid paying me. But a couple of the vorcha clans had heard a rumor that I was… possessed or something, I guess. So when I came by the dumpsters they’d scatter.”

“You can never over-estimate the benefit of being the first one to the dumpster.”

Kaidan chuckled and cocked an eyebrow down at Shepard, who had rolled onto his side to watch Kaidan’s face.

“Street rat, remember?” Shepard said, a yawning smile stretching across his face. Kaidan laughed again and stroked a hand through Shepard’s hair as he reached behind him to prop his head on a pillow.

“Yeah… yeah.” He beamed. “Never really… uh… found anyone who could appreciate that story before.” Shepard returned his smile just as warmly. “I guess I didn’t like people being afraid of me, though.”

Shepard’s smile grew feral, he hoisted himself onto his elbows and crawled up Kaidan’s body, kissing him hungrily. “That’s how I survived, people being afraid of me,” Shepard said as he pulled away, one canine biting the color out of his lip. Both men laughed, and Shepard flopped over next to Kaidan and let him continue.

“That job didn’t last long. Long enough where I got really good at doing everyday tasks with biotics, that’s for sure. I hadn’t really wanted to use my biotics at all after brain camp, but now that it seemed like everywhere I went, people already knew, already hated me for it, and since it had saved my life in that mine, I decided I should keep practicing. If I was going to be a freak human biotic, I was going to be good at it. In my off-hours I started practicing some of the techniques we learned in brain camp, and since I wasn’t trying to rebel against the system and since I had no friends to… distract me… I figured why not? Used to terrify me how much I enjoyed using them.”

“Why?”

“Because I had killed a man with them, because they chased Rahna away, because everyone in the universe hated me because of them. I don’t really know. Still never used them on a living soul. Never.” He shrugged.

“It’s strange to think about.” Shepard took Kaidan’s hand again. “They’re such a part of your life these days.”

“Heh, probably experiences like Omega that made them a part of my life.” His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a place like that Shepard, where your only gift in life was the thing that turned people against you? It really messed with my head, I guess.”

“Your only gift? You didn’t really think that, did you?”

“Yeah. I sure did. I didn’t have a hard childhood, compared to a lot of people. Had a lot of problems in school, medical stuff, but I had a home and parents who loved me. _They_ told me my biggest offering to the world was staying grounded, sticking to my guns. But then I ran away from the people who were depending on me. Now I was just… the biotic human.” Kaidan sighed, then rested his hand on his belly to suppress another yawn. “But eventually that got me noticed. I snuck up to the main urban ward on Omega. There was an elcor merchant up there who supplied dextro food to a bunch of restaurants. No one trusted a vorcha delivery man with food, and for some reason non-dextro species are really finicky handling the stuff. Or they were. All the turians on the station got easy jobs as security or started running with the mercs, so between me and the quarians, the merchant decided he could read my expression better. So I got the job. It was pretty easy and paid a whole lot better than the mine. Plus, y’know, with an elcor boss you always know where you stand.”

Shepard dissolved into a fit of giggling, “’With cloying insincerity: Kaidan, keep up the good work and perhaps there will be a little bonus on the next paycheck.’”

“Dogmatically: the customer is always right!’”

“’Encouragement: Unpaid overtime is valuable experience.’”

Kaidan and Shepard were soon laughing too much to affect an elcor monotone, and after a few breaths, Kaidan continued.

“So I delivered the food to a bunch of places around the upper ward. There was this casino, and once there was this pack of vorcha and…” He noticed Shepard’s raised eyebrow and trailed off. “Umm. Nevermind. Story for another time. Anyway, I _also_ delivered to Afterlife. Usually got a couple drinks in, did some dancing. Eventually I convinced the bar to buy even more of the dextro food, and more expensive stuff too.”

He raised a knee and turned his body to the side, making the bed bounce a little. “I had this shtick where I would see a couple turians with some of our dextro sushi and pretend to be just fascinated in it, like, starved human, licking my lips and just _staring_ at this plate of food.” He laughed, “And they’re still prejudiced towards humans, right? Right? So they sit there and just _eat_ the stuff up to rub it in my face. Then they’d finish a whole platter and order another one, just to spite me. After a while they started ordering the really expensive stuff to show off.” He clenched a fist victoriously. “I guess they must’ve really liked it: food sales at Afterlife went through the roof!”

“Honorable Kaidan Alenko spent his youth swindling turians in the seediest club in the galaxy.” Shepard’s face lit up, his fingers playing at the rolled-up sleeve on Kaidan’s uniform. “Why, I never!”

“My boss was so impressed he gave me a raise and a nominal title. He had me negotiate all his business arrangements around Omega, everything from sales of dextro food to working with his satellite retailers, to interacting with Aria’s men for his protection payment. In a place like Afterlife, if you show up enough nights in a row, you become a regular. And if you’re a regular, you’re normal.”

“So did that convince you that you had more to offer than just biotics?”

“Well, maybe so. I was still practicing more than ever, especially now that I had a better income to actually buy food.” He rolled his eyes. “Then my boss started to get into heavy weapons sales with the Blood Pack, wanted me to handle all the negotiations. Figured I’d have a better chance of lying to a krogan than he would.” He kissed Shepard’s palm as his hands wandered up the textures on Kaidan’s uniform to his collar. “It didn’t sit well with me, I’d seen what the Blood Pack was about, knew what they’d do with the kinds of weapons we were selling.” He settled back into the bed, laying his head in the hollow beneath Shepard’s shoulder. “I told him he shouldn’t get involved. He said he would ‘Sincerely think about it’. Next day one of his satellite shops had been trashed by a krogan. He decided to go ahead with the deal, and I decided to get off Omega.”

“Omega’s a big place, you couldn’t stay?”

“A human biotic? Easy to recognize. Half of Omega would turn me in in a heartbeat for the bounty the Blood Pack could put on my head. The other half would turn me in for kicks.”

“Where did you go?”

“Well, transport off Omega is expensive, and even the transports I could afford weren’t selling tickets to me. I stowed away on a volus freighter. I recognized some of the crates as low pressure cargo from my time working freighters, so even though volus ships would crush a human with the high pressure inside, I knew I could stow away in the low pressure bay. It also meant that none of the crew would be checking on the cargo at all for the whole flight.”

Looking up, Kaidan noticed Shepard’s eyes were fluttering open and closed. Kaidan stayed silent, determining if Shepard had fallen asleep.

Shepard opened his eyes, “And then?”

Kaidan huffed a laugh and laid his own head back, closing his eyes. “I was in that cargo hold forever while the freighter made lots of other drops. I had to ration what little food I had, some days I didn’t eat at all. There were some dry goods in the containers I was stowed away with… but… eh. You know.”

“You were starving and you didn’t just nip some dry goods?” Shepard said, incredulous.

“What can I say Shepard? I got close. Had my twentieth birthday on that freighter, almost helped myself.”

“You stole a gun, but not food?” Shepard raised his head to watch Kaidan’s expression with a wry grin on his face. Kaidan was quiet for a minute.

“…gun was a worst case scenario thing. Steal a gun… if you need to steal again… makes it easier.” His voice was an iron-edged whisper.

“…Uh-huh.” Shepard ran his fingers through Kaidan’s hair, but the other man didn’t look up.

“What can I say, Shepard? I spent all my time after BAaT wishing I could believe the things I did before I went. Then I got to Omega and was stealing and scavenging and cheating. I didn’t want be that.”

“Still, desperate times?”

“I dunno. That was the darkest time of my life. Guess my moral code doesn’t stretch as far as I’d like. I wonder sometimes if a lot of that darkness is still in me.”

“Hey,” Shepard placed stroked a thumb across Kaidan’s jaw, “you never need to defend yourself to me, Kaidan. I’ve… done things to survive too.” Kaidan raised his eyes, searching Shepard’s for a moment before he nodded.

“Anyway. That’s how I got off Omega.”

“So that’s how you ended up on Illium, I presume?”

“Not from that particular freighter trip, but not long after. Did a couple odd jobs here and there on a couple other planets.” Kaidan’s sigh became a yawn.

“I know I’ve always appreciated your versatility,” Shepard said quietly, holding in his own yawn.

Kaidan couldn’t help but belt out a laugh, rolling to his side on the bed. “Oh, not _yet_ you haven’t!” he dissolved into another fit of laughter. Leaning up on his elbow, Shepard was smiling but clueless.

“You’re a medic, a technician, a biotic, a soldier…”

Kaidan howled with more laughter, “You mean—you—oh of course. Shepard, you’re terrible at double-entendre. I should’ve known!”

Shepard rolled his eyes, catching on, “Maybe your mind’s just in the gutter, eh, Major?”

“Oh it’s not that.” Kaidan scooched his hip closer, touching Shepard’s face while he laughed. “Just so surprised to find out that you hearing about me living in the _literal_ gutter hasn’t turned you off.”

“Well, long as I know it turned out alright, the idea of you toiling in a hot mine…” Shepard grinned hotly, pressing his thumb into the musculature of Kaidan’s chest through the uniform.

“Shepard, I was skin and bones back then.” Kaidan wiped some stray tears out of his eyes, catching his breath. Shepard had shifted higher on the bed, pushing Kaidan flat. His hands followed his gaze, rubbing up to Kaidan’s shoulders, down to his belly, then back up to firmly press into his chest.

“Not like now.” His voice was low, eyes heavy-lidded.

“Tell me that this time you’re flirting on purpose,” Kaidan grinned.

“This time,” he put his lips to Kaidan’s throat, “I’m flirting on purpose.” When Kaidan pulled his face up for a kiss, the moment was interrupted by Shepard’s yawn. Kaidan smirked, but was soon yawning as well.

“It’s hard to walk away from you, Shepard, but I’ve got to go to bed, and you’ve got to sleep, too.” He rolled Shepard over and stood up. Shepard caught his arm lightly.

“How do I make it harder for you to walk away?” Shepard mumbled, head lolling against pillow, chest softly rising and falling with sleepy breaths.

Kaidan chuckled, “Get some sleep, Shepard.”

“Tell me about Illium. How long were you there before moving on?” Shepard pulled at Kaidan’s arm. Kaidan allowed himself to be pulled in, and Shepard kissed his wrist and down his palm.

“Illium…” Kaidan sighed, ran a finger along Shepard’s jawline. “That’s something I better not get into tonight. It was a pretty big time in my life.”

Shepard searched Kaidan’s expression before nodding gently. He pushed himself up and pulled Kaidan down for a kiss.

“Alright. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“Okay Shepard. And… thanks for listening. It’s not a time of my life I like to relive.”

“Yeah.” A shadow passed over Shepard’s features. “I’ve got more than a few moments in my own life like that.”

“I hope I get to hear about a few of those times.”

“Maybe you can come up some other time and hear all about it?” He was too tired to be seductive.

“Count on it. Now get some sleep, alright?”

“Speak for yourself. Hearing about you slumming it and wasting away makes me want to fill you with food and send you to bed.”

“I’m pretty good at taking care of myself, Commander.” Kaidan smiled brightly, “But you’re sweet for saying so anyway.”

When the hatch had closed behind Kaidan and Shepard dozed, the chess-board on the table still flashed just as Kaidan had left it: the holographic black knight superimposed over the white pawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:  
> Shepard enters the geth consensus. Kaidan tries to figure out what that'd be like. The mission reminds Shepard of his time in the Tenth Street Reds.
> 
> Geth Fighter Base


	8. The Difference between Blowing Things Up and Putting them Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey into the geth consensus was a cake-walk, and this is bothering Shepard. Reminds him of his past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone's got their own take on the Tenth Street Reds, I guess.

Kaidan had been pacing the length of the observation lounge for almost an hour. He had begun his Spectre report a dozen times, and had been staring at the most recent iteration of an opening line for almost 20 minutes:

 

> _Commander Shepard scanned by geth machine. Appeared unconscious for 2 hours. Emerged with geth Prime reinforcements for war-effort._

Brokering peace with a faction of geth Primes was sure to cause a stir amongst the Citadel councilors. Shepard had smoothed it out with Hackett, and the Crucible was desperate enough not to ask too many questions; but Kaidan had volunteered to basically handle all Spectre reports for the two of them, and the Council already took a dim view of two human Spectres who almost never reported in.

Handling calls over the QEC with Tevos had become a significant part of the major’s day. When they had returned from the surface of Rannoch, he had distinctly _not_ contacted the Council with an update. He explained to Tali that he would rather get his thoughts down in writing before he tried to straight-facedly tell the council that the two Spectres with the greatest experience fighting the eons-old sentient machines had, in fact, now made an alliance with a younger race of near-sentient machines. Or at least a small fraction of them.

Kaidan erased the line and began again:

 

> _Spectre Shepard’s brain was scanned into the geth consensus, a visual representation of the geth interfaced consciousness. Yes, I know it’s hard to believe. But this really happened. He didn’t even bat an eye, didn’t even worry about if he was ever going to come back or not. No I don’t know what else to say. I just sat there and watched it happen. Couldn’t do a damn thing. Never even said goodbye._
> 
> _How the hell do I write a report about this?_

He frowned, deleted the whole thing.

 “Damn. EDI, where is Commander Shepard?”

“Shepard is presently hiding on Deck 2.”

“…hiding?” Kaidan quirked an eyebrow at his reflection in the window.

“Yes. In the temporary storage junction aft of the conference room.”

“Umm, if he’s hiding, should you be telling me this?”

“Normally, I would simply report that Shepard is in his quarters, not to be disturbed. However, based on my observations, Shepard may benefit from your intervention. If you were to ‘stumble’ on him, you may find him receptive to company.” There was the hint of a smirk in the word ‘receptive’.

Kaidan laughed, “I should probably leave him be.” He moved to sit down.

“He has not eaten in 17 hours, Major.”

Kaidan’s eyes narrowed, “EDI, I’m uncomfortable with how manipulative you’re becoming.”

“Your fears are unwarranted, Major,” the tinny voice had a sparkle to it. “I have simply observed that individuals in a relationship often take great interest in the maintenance habits of one another. I am attempting to facilitate the healthy progression of your relationship.”

“Uh-huh. And based on your observation, EDI, how many people on the ship know that Shepard and I are in a relationship? Wait, don’t answer that. I don’t care. Just don’t tell me.” Kaidan rolled his eyes but smiled. He locked his data-pad and tossed it onto the couch.

“As you wish, Major Alenko,” EDI replied, voice coming as close as possible to sarcasm.

“And EDI,” he stopped at the hatch, “you’re _sure_ Shepard wouldn’t rather be left alone?”

“Uncertain, regardless: I did monitor his ‘stomach grumbling’ several minutes ago.”

“So help me, EDI...” Kaidan waved his fist in mock rage.

He emerged from the observation lounge and headed to the kitchen to grab a couple protein bars from the cupboard specifically designated for mission snacks, then headed to the lift. After the brief scan transitioning into the aft of the ship, he walked past the brightly lit conference room. The storage nook behind it was dark, and if he hadn’t been looking closely, he would’ve missed the faint orange glow deep behind the crates. He chuckled to himself, clearing his throat and rounding the corner to ‘bump’ into Shepard in such a secluded hiding place. Sure enough, there was Shepard, sitting in the corner, carefully using his omni-tool to glue a panel onto a small model of a quarian frigate.

“Heeey, there you are.” Kaidan smiled, biting into one of his protein bars.

“Kaidan!” Shepard looked up, his face breaking into a grin immediately.

“Just walking back to contact the Council on the QEC and noticed the glow,” Kaidan said. Underlit by the omni-tool, Shepard’s smile looked just a bit worn. Kaidan took a seat on a box, holding out a spread of protein bars for Shepard’s selection. “I just happened to have a couple more bars here… want one?”

“Thanks, I am pretty hungry.” Shepard’s micro-fabricator dimmed and he accepted a bar, tore the foil off and bit in. The two men chewed in silence for a moment, eyes adjusting to the darkness with the absence of the omni-tool’s glow.

“Now,” Kaidan said, swallowing, “why would you be sitting in the dark when you could be building this model in the comfort of your own quarters?”

Shepard smiled up at him around a mouthful of densely packed protein. He chewed faster and swallowed. “I wanted to be close to the War Room as info was rolling in. There was a lull so I decided to search for some of my models.” He patted the quarian frigate on his lap, letting his fingers test the strength of one of the more fragile bits. “They took them all out of my quarters when they arrested me. Since the retrofit, I’ve been finding them stashed all over the ship; this one wasn’t exactly packed with care.” He bit into the protein bar again, gently lifting the model to inspect his work. Kaidan smiled at the way Shepard pressed his face right up to the little ship, ensuring the repaired panel was flush. “Started repairing it before I really thought about it. Guess I got carried away. Pretty strange, really.”

Kaidan had shoved the rest of his bar into his mouth when Shepard gave him a sheepish look in the dimness. He tried swallowing the bar barely chewed in a rush to answer, choked a bit. “Well… No! No, no! That…” He hacked. “That’s fine… neat.” Shepard’s expression dissolved from embarrassed to concerned, but Kaidan waved him off, finally managing to swallow properly. “Woo. Sorry. Anyway… I’m glad I, um, ran into you, anyhow. I was hoping to find out a little more about your experience in the geth consensus before I try explaining it to the Council.”

Shepard laughed, he unwrapped the rest of his bar, plucked the empty foil out of Kaidan’s hand and stuffed both wrappers in his pocket.  “You’re sure it won’t just hurt your brain, Major?”

The door to the War Room opened and both men fell silent as a junior officer tromped out, not noticing the commander and the major hiding in the darkness.

“Heh, yeah...” Kaidan continued when the officer was out of earshot through the next hatch. “I thought about that and decided my brain already hurt enough from everything going on. I can take a little more.” Shepard shook his head when offered another bar, and Kaidan tucked the remaining snacks in his own pocket.

 Shepard rose to his feet, wincing sharply. Kaidan rushed up and seized him around the shoulders, keeping him from stumbling backwards into the bulkhead.

 “Thanks! Almost smashed this thing again,” Shepard said, gesturing to the model through a haze of pain. “Let me run this up to my quarters before all that hard work gets destroyed.”

Kaidan searched his face till the pained lines smoothed out of it, until Shepard dropped his eyes with a nervous chuckle, sidestepping out of his grip to lead him to the lift.

A few minutes later, Shepard had brushed aside his terminal and his medal case to clear a place on his desk for the quarian model. The mini-fabricator on his omni-tool tightened to a thin needle, producing a molecular adhesive to carefully glue one of the tiny antennae back to the body of the model. Kaidan had opted to sit on the floor, back to the wall beneath the fish tank.

“…and it was swarming with geth.” Shepard called over his shoulder, continuing the story he’d begun in the lift. “But there was this box on the table that was an unassembled model ship.”

“What was it doing there?” He’d been goading Shepard for more than the sit-rep details.

“Tali said quarian children build models as a way to start learning ship design.” He kneeled on the floor, tightening the fabricator even further.

“…so? Go on?”

 “Hm? Oh. Anyway, there was a geth Prime pressing in to our left, but I stowed it under my arm anyway. Ended up impressing Garrus that I could fire that shotgun one-handed.” Shepard’s wrist held steady, despite the little chuckle that shook his shoulders, carefully welding the piece back into place.

“That’s crazy! Tell me you’ve got a story that exciting about every one of these models?”

“I wish. I got most of them from tourist shops. Nothing more exciting than a discount here and there.”

“Oh? Discount, huh?” He waggled his eyebrows when Shepard turned.

“A little light promotion,” Shepard’s omni-tool blinked off. “There, I think that’s just about repaired.”

He held the ship up to his eye and checked it from a few angles. Kaidan slid up the wall and came over to inspect it.

“I can’t even tell it was broken.”

“It’s good to know I can put things together as well as blow them up. I think I’ll always be better at blowing them up, though.” He stood up and walked down the steps, opening the display case and setting the little quarian frigate just below the SR-2. When he turned around Kaidan was seated at the foot of his bed, regarding him with a soft smile.

“I like seeing you like this, Shepard. Relaxing. It’s really nice.”

“Relaxing? Is that what I’m doing?” Shepard chuckled, “Thought I was just avoiding work.” He closed the case and sat at the very edge of the sofa, unbuttoning the top button on his uniform before thinking better of it.

“I wonder sometimes what kind of man you’d have been in civilian life. Ship architect? Pet-store owner?” Kaidan grinned.

Shepard rubbed the back of his neck, stretched one leg out to relieve the ache in his hip. “Yeah? Wonder that often?”

“I’m wondering it right now,” Kaidan winked. That made Shepard’s eyes open wide, try to mirror Kaidan’s posture.

“I guess we’ll never know.”

“Aw c’mon! We won’t be soldiers forever, Shepard. You ever think about living a normal life?”

“…Not sure I’d know where to start,” Shepard admitted with an apologetic smile. He reached out to run a finger across the table-top. Kaidan watched that finger intently, got a smirk on his face.

“Hearing you talk just now, I think you’ve already made a start.”

Shepard chuckled, shook his head. “Everybody needs hobbies,” he mumbled.

“It’s not just that, though. Hearing you brag about killing a Prime one-handed? Hearing about you shamelessly shilling your image for a discount on a little ship.” Kaidan laughed, a rumbling sound deep in his throat. He sat up and held both his hands up, gesturing Shepard over to him. “I’m more convinced than ever there’s a man under all that hardened N7 gristle.”

Shepard lowered his head, but a moment later hauled himself off the couch. He sat next to Kaidan and flopped prone onto the bed, letting out his breath with an ‘oomph’ as he landed wrong on his back, sending a shot of pain down his leg. Kaidan leaned back on an elbow, watching his face.

“All this N7 gristle is getting a little old.” Shepard tried to sit back up and another shot of pain surged up his back, “Ooookay. Just going to lay here for a little bit.”

“Seems like we keep ending up on the bed, huh?” Kaidan said with a wicked smirk.

“On, but not in,” Shepard retorted looking just as sly.

“Maybe let’s give all that gristle a day to rest, huh?” Kaidan winked.

“This time tomorrow… we’ll be assaulting that Reaper base…” Both men fell silent.

“So.” Kaidan cleared his throat, lightly placed a hand on Shepard’s shoulder. “Care to fill me in on your little trip through the looking glass?”

“On Rannoch? Well. Hmmm. It’s hard to put into words,” Shepard said distantly.

“Give it your best shot.” Kaidan lay down on his back, shoulder to shoulder with Shepard.

“It was… like… a geth city, I suppose.” He went silent for a minute.

Kaidan drummed his fingers on his sternum in the silence. “…skyscrapers? Little geth bodegas?”

“It didn’t _look_ like a city. The world appeared to me in a way I could understand. So it was… a giant room full of white blocks.”

“…very imaginative Shepard. You might want to spice that part up a bit for your autobiography.”

“I didn’t get to pick from a list of options,” Shepard smirked. He huffed out his breath and his mouth hardened as he was lost in thought.

“…hey, Shepard.” Kaidan lightly shouldered Shepard’s side, turning his head to watch the expression on the commander’s face. “What’s going on?”

“Hmm?” Shepard turned, sullen.

“Talk to me…” Kaidan said softly.

Shepard looked down to watch Kaidan take his hand. “There’s nothing to say. It’s hard to describe.” He was quiet, his tone flat to a degree even Legion’s voice never achieved. He allowed Kaidan to thread their fingers together passively.

“You’re doing that thing. Where you’re giving me the standard debrief answers. But it sure looks like something’s bothering you.”

“…nothing’s bothering me…?” Ben swallowed, watched Kaidan’s dark eyes. He seemed genuinely unsure himself.

Kadian deflated, but tried to smile. Shepard mirrored the expression.

“Shepard,” Kaidan sighed, “okay. You’ll tell me if you want to tell me.”

“Kaidan,” Shepard’s hand tensed as Kaidan pulled away, “I _do_ want to tell you, I’m just… not sure if there’s anything to tell.”

“Are you feeling alright?”

“…No?” Shepard’s brows scrunched together, as if he was greatly exerting himself.  “I just don’t know what’s important. Important enough to talk about.”

“No need to get frustrated,” Kaidan said, soothing a hand down Shepard’s arm. “I… care about you, Shepard. Everything’s important, okay?”

“…okay.” Shepard nodded, feeling the fibers of the sheets beneath his open palm. Hard-coding.

“So you were in a big room full of white lights?” Kaidan prompted.

“Every white light was an individual geth program. The Reaper code was too tied into geth in the server. As I rooted out the Reaper code, the lights started dimming one by one.”

Kaidan’s eyebrows went up, “…Oh.”

“Legion had made the program for removing the Reaper code look like a gun. No reloading. No thermal clips.” Shepard closed his eyes, remembering.  “Just pull the trigger, hold it down, watch the Reaper code disappear. Watch the world go dark little by little. A whole geth city… server… wiped out in two hours.” His tone had become flat again, sit-rep debrief, But the concentration lining his face had become and expression nearer to guilt. “I killed more in two hours than the quarian fleet has killed in 300 years.”

“Shepard, it’s… it’s not really like that.” Kaidan squeezed his hand. “When we’re killing husks on earth… those people might have been human, but the Reapers took that away from them.”

“It didn’t feel like that. Husks are trying to kill you. This was like coming on the enemy sleeping.”

“Like killing husks still on the Dragons’ Teeth, then.”

“Maybe.” Shepard answered, softly crumpling the cloth beneath his hands. Then, he shook his head. “In the consensus, they all looked alike, though. There weren’t any active enemies in there. It was like collateral damage…. Like…” Shepard fell silent.

“…Shepard? What are you thinking?”

“Like the Reds,” he answered simply.

“The… Tenth Street Reds?”

“Yeah.”

“…do…” He looked down as Shepard slipped his hand out of Kaidan’s. “Do you wanna tell this story?”

“Oh, it doesn’t bother me to talk about.” His face was unreadable. Shepard ran his fingers up the embroidery on his uniform shirt, then began as if reciting a routine procedure. “When I was 12 this rival gang… boys from the Bulaq… flew a shuttle over Tenth Street turf and started dropping fire bombs everywhere. We didn’t have a lab there. Or a house. It was a street corner where things were quiet for the Reds. A lot of people died. A few Reds. Mostly collateral damage. Shop owners. Delivery men. People walking by. That’s what it felt like in the consensus. Not like war. Like a drive by.”

When Shepard had finished listing off the events, Kaidan was quiet for a moment. “Wow, Shepard… I’ve never heard you talk about…”

“My time in a gang?” He turned to Kaidan, quirked an eyebrow.

“Yeah, frankly. I mean, I knew you were in the Tenth Street Reds. Just seemed like a part of yourself you had left in the past.”

“Mmm. I suppose I’d like to think that’s all behind me. I don’t always believe that though. Only fair, considering you opening up about that business on Omega. So go ahead, ask me anything.” Shepard cast a sly glance over at Kaidan, but folded his arms across his chest.

Kaidan chuckled, “Well it’s not a contest to see who can confess more. But if you give me an opening to learn more about you…”

“Fair’s fair.”

“You sure you want to talk about this?”

“Yeah, it doesn’t really bother me, just…” He shrugged. “I did things I’m not proud of. And I’m bad at telling stories. The details I think are important… aren’t exactly what everyone else is looking for.”

“Okay… ummm…” Kaidan bit his lip to think. “What was your childhood like? Before the Reds?”

Shepard sighed and concertedly eased his shoulders as he folded his hands across his chest, gaze lost in the flutter of stars through the skylight above the bed.

“You were talking about your parents last night. I never knew my parents. I don’t remember anything about them. If they died, if they just left me—I don’t know. I picked pockets, stole from shops. Brought money, food, whatever home to a man… said he was my uncle.” He smiled bitterly. “Said he I had his nose. He made a keening sound in his throat when he slept and when he lied. He always leaned forward on his left elbow, wink at his mark with his left eye. We’d stow aboard transports, move to other cities. Eventually we came back. His cons never worked anywhere else, but the truth is he would never try to adapt. That was strange to me, when I thought back on it later. Why wouldn’t he adapt? Couldn’t he tell people were different everywhere? When we did have a roof to live under it didn’t last long. I was pretty young when I ran away from him.”

“So… he wasn’t much of a father figure in your life, then?”

“He made sure that would never happen. He didn’t want to be sentimental. I didn’t either. My life was all about survival from the beginning, for as long as I could remember. I watched him from the beginning and I knew that he would never give what he got to anybody else. So I decided I shouldn’t either.” Shepard suppressed a yawn with a deep inhalation. “I was looking for a better way to survive, and when I was old enough to realize he couldn’t do that for me anymore, I left.”

“What did you do? Young kid like that out on his own...”

“I finally got to keep everything I stole, that’s for sure.” Shepard huffed coldly, “Spent plenty of nights sleeping under the 6 October Bridge. I watched people and practiced cons. Gangs ate better. So I watched the gangs. Fell in with the Tenth Street Reds. I don’t even remember how anymore. Huh. There was life before the Reds, and life in the Reds. I guess it was never important ‘why’ exactly. I did it to survive.”

“Sounds… well it sounds like a gang, I suppose. Dealing with the Blood Pack was a little like that.”

“I suppose they’re the same all over,” Shepard said quietly.

“So what did you do once you were in with the Reds?”

“The small-time Reds all swaggered. The older Reds who told the small-timers what to do didn’t. All the small-timers got along, but there were lots of petty rivalries. I was useful because I was a good con. My first year with the Reds I hardly said anything, so I didn’t have to swagger. They let me be there and watch how things happened.

“The Reds were there right at the beginning of the Red Sand trade. They were small time dealers of whatever synthetic stuff they could get their hands on in the Old City, but once they got their hands on the first formulas for Red Sand… all of the sudden they were international traffickers. Next, they were sending it off world.”

“Really? I guess I have them to thank for all the people I knew who got hooked.” Kaidan’s voice was hollow, “…the Tenth Street Reds. Huh.”

“Depending on who you ask, they’re named for the drug. I don’t know. It was never important to me. They got the recipe straight from the Triads on Mars; the Reds were the biggest Red Sand producer for a while.”

“You sold Red Sand then?” Kaidan’s eyebrows raised. Shepard rolled over onto his side, looking for a sign of Kaidan’s emotion in his face. Cautiously he placed a hand on Kaidan’s chest.

“Yeah. I did.” He stated matter-o-factly. Kaidan covered his hand in his own and scooched a little closer. “Not when I was a little kid. I did some running, some recon. Then I got a little older and they wanted me to start selling. When I took my first hit of the stuff, it knocked me out hard, way harder than it should have. That’s when they figured out it was probably because I was a biotic.”

“Your biotics were latent until you were a teenager? That’s pretty odd actually.” Kaidan pulled his body in even closer, raising his head and resting an elbow on the mattress.

“Had no idea till I had the sympathetic reaction with the Red Sand. After that I started climbing ranks in the Reds. I was already a big kid, good fighter. I started trying to get my biotics to activate.”

“Without an implant!” Kaidan beamed with affection, “I remember those days!”

“Something like that.” Shepard cocked an eyebrow. “I eventually got to the point where I could light up—err ‘activate a biotic field’ in my legs, my arms, my fists. I could hit harder than anyone else on the street, increasing the mass of my muscles a split second before I made contact… packed a hell of a punch. Learned how to jump the same way. I hadn’t figured out how to make a barrier though.” He held up a gnarled hand. “I don’t know how many times I broke my fingers because they couldn’t take the force.”

Kaidan snorted, then took Shepard’s hand, inspecting the long, calloused fingers, rubbing the palm and smoothing up to his fingertips. They were nobbled, the pinky didn’t quite lay flat with the other fingers, and the index finger seemed somewhat shorter than it should have been. Dozens of white scars wound around the knuckles like frozen lightning.

“Yeah, a little scarred, but they look alright to me.” Kaidan kissed Shepard’s hand before he folded it into his own.

“What can I say, I have a talent for healing up like nothing happened,” Shepard said, amusement in his voice.

“Tell that to your back and your hip.” Kaidan sank back flat on the bed.

“Low blow, Kaidan. Low blow…” Shepard rested his head against Kaidan’s shoulder, and the two lapsed into silence. Finally, Kaidan nudged Shepard.

“So you stole, you beat people up, you sold Red Sand to some normal folks that couldn’t even appreciate the high. Sounds like some life for a teenager, eh?”

“I had never had as much to eat before. I never had a place to live for so long. Still, I stole almost anything I wanted. I got a cut of the operations I helped out with, but not a big cut, and I never spent any of it. Hid it where I used to sleep when I was a little kid…” Shepard leaned up on an elbow, he and Kaidan stared into each other’s eyes for a moment. “Kaidan, I’m not proud of a lot of what I did back then. I shook people down for protection money. Trashed their shops. I beat up kids from the Maadi to make an example. There’s more there I regret than I can remember.”

The look in Shepard’s eyes was apologetic, and Kaidan’s wry smile faded into an expression of concern, “Why are you telling me this, Shepard?”

“You have an image of me… I want to show you the whole picture. I’ve done some things that don’t fit the ‘Commander Shepard’ mold. There… I’ve always had trouble figuring out the right thing to do. There was no moral code in the Reds. It’s not really something I’ve ever talked about with anyone. It feels like another life, but it’s not. It’s my life.”

“I know.”

“And it’s not really something to be proud of…”

“You didn’t have an easy life, Shepard. And no matter what happened back then, I’m proud of you.” Kaidan rolled onto his side again and settled Shepard back into the bed. The two men lay, heads resting on their arms, fingers tangled above their heads. “You’re the man I mourned, the man I failed, the man who saved my life, and who saved the galaxy. The man who didn’t even think twice about doing the right thing when his past caught up with him outside Chora’s Den. That’s the Shepard I… know.”

“It doesn’t make up for what I did.” Their noses touched and Shepard closed his eyes.

“Maybe. But it changes how you go forward. You turned yourself around, Shepard. You set yourself on a new path, one that you’re still following.”

“Same path every Alliance soldier follows...” he muttered.

Kaidan kissed his brow lightly, “No, it isn’t.”

“Hmm.” He sighed lightly. Kaidan kissed his face where the dimple would appear if only he’d smile, and he did.

“So. How did you go from the Tenth Street Reds to Alliance N7 hotshot Lieutenant Commander?” Kaidan asked, stroking Shepard’s cheek.

“They started using me just as muscle. I didn’t look like it, but they all knew I would win whatever fight we’d get in. I traveled all over the world, port to port, in the back of transport shuttles taking shipments of Red Sand out to big cities. Spent a lot of time getting things set up in New York, in Odessa, in Mombasa; strong-arming the Sand, lighting up and going to war with whatever other dealers had already been working different districts. We felt invincible. But coming home never really felt like coming home.”

“No friends? No special someone?”

“Sex was a luxury. Never really trusted any of the guys I knew enough to find out if they’d be interested. A few were interested in me. Friends? I suppose it was still all about survival. I was the quiet muscle. People spent more time trying not to get on my bad side than trying to get on my good. I was still a kid. The only people talking to me were trying to take advantage of me, get me to do something they knew was too crazy for anyone with half a brain to do themselves, then pay me almost nothing. They didn’t understand what I was about. I didn’t know any better. But things changed.”

“When?”

“I must have been about 16. There was this hot shot, owned some corporation in the Maadi, had started selling some stuff. Red Sand direct from the Triads, other stuff.” The emotion drained from Shepard’s voice. “I thought we were going to take a small group, get to the guy on the top level of this big tower, rough him up. Someone made a different call. We were going to climb the tower floor by floor and cripple the operation. It was a huge operation, dozens of Reds. It was war.

“I came on lit up. Knocked down one of the guards, next thing I knew there was a hole through his brain. Man following me up was executing anyone I knocked down. I had never killed anyone before. I had never needed to. The Sands were out for blood. I didn’t want to kill anyone, but that night, anyone I hit, tried to knock down and take out of the fight—got shot up the next second.” Kaidan kissed his brow but Shepard made no response.

“It was a slaughter, Kaidan… I don’t think half the people in the building that night knew their boss was selling Sand. I walked up with them in the back. I watched the killing. The man we were after was locked in a panic room in the penthouse. We took out the kinetic barriers right away. Getting through the actual door was harder. They told me to knock the door down. I lied and said my fingers were broken. Then they told me to kick it in. I kicked at the door until I could feel my shin starting to fracture. I made an excuse. Didn’t know how to get out of there.

“There was screaming in the other room. Because I had dented the door, they could work some explosive gel between the hinges and they blew the vault door out of its frame. They’d gotten to the boss. By the time I got back in they were… teaching him a lesson. Sending a message. He was begging for his life. The things they did to him were awful. The way they left him for the authorities was horrific. Then we all walked back down the tower. Bodies everywhere. As if nothing had happened. Talking and laughing.”

“Oh, Shepard...” Kaidan settled back into the bed and tried to pull Shepard in, but he lay stiff.

“Everyone had to lay low then, get out of the city. The government declared it a terrorist uprising and vowed to do away with the whole organization. Everyone scattered to a different city, the Tenth Street Reds were all over by now, so it was easy. I got on a shuttle for New York. I grabbed all the money I’d been saving for years. It was confusing. These were the only people I knew, this was the only way I had ever seen the world work. But the way we handled that tower… that didn’t sit with me.”

“Killing all those people…” Kaidan said, quietly raging.

“And I had helped. I hadn’t even thought of it that way till… after Akuze. The idea that we had murdered almost two hundred people… at the time, it seemed like a waste.” He turned to Kaidan, yet still looked through him. “I didn’t understand why you would handle the situation that way. You could watch people, learn about them. If you kill them… you can’t do that. If you kill people, the authorities get involved. And they had. It was a bad way to handle it. I couldn’t figure out why someone would kill people just to kill people. It didn’t make any sense to me.”

“What… umm… what did you think?” Kaidan touched Shepard’s face hesitantly, and Ben’s eyes focused on his at last.

“You said once ‘you never get used to seeing dead civilians.’ I had to learn how to be outraged by that,” he said, almost too quiet to be heard. “And it took me years.”

Kaidan’s smile was tentative, but he eased his arm behind Shepard’s back and coaxed Shepard up to lay his head on his chest. “But you learned,” he said at last.

Shepard smiled a little. “One thing I learned right away was the true nature of the Reds. I had always been able to look at what I was doing and convince myself that it was all for my survival. But there was something else. All those gang wars in different cities. That wasn’t survival, was naïve to assume that everyone I was fighting with was being as shy about killing as I was. I belonged to this gang. I thought I didn’t take pride in that, but I did, and now I saw what it was I belonged to: people willing to end lives of innocents just to send a message?

“It felt just like when the Bulaq boys firebombed that street. Worse. More personal. The night of the firebombing I had watched good people, people who offered to give me food even when they knew I was stealing it from them anyway… I watched those people burn to death just because they were close to me. Because of who I ran with…” he swallowed, “I still feel that way, worry about this crew. In danger because of me.”

“Everyone knows the score, Shepard.”

“Mm. It’s different, the people on this ship are good people. I didn’t know that I was running with scum back in the Reds. But that night in the tower, I helped those people I was so _proud_ to belong with exterminate hundreds of people because they were in the building.”

“That’s a heavy thing to realize for a sixteen year old, Shepard.” Kaidan had worked a hand around Shepard’s waist and he reciprocated the gesture. Their faces rubbed together, Shepard’s stubble scratching at Kaidan’s smooth cheek.

 “I wish I could say I had that whole revelation on the shuttle to New York, but I didn’t really understand what I was feeling. But I knew there was no such thing as ‘just surviving.’ You were always doing something more. To tell you the truth, if we hadn’t all scattered and I hadn’t lost touch with everyone I probably would’ve joined back up. Instead I went back to sleeping under bridges again. Did some cage matches, because the longer I spent not doing something the more I felt like I needed to punch something. I met a lot of guys that were getting ready to enlist with the Alliance. It seemed like something to really fight for, something worth belonging to, I guess. I went to enlist, but after the biometrics they found out I was only 17 and told me to come back when I was 18. They fitted me with an implant though. First time I lit up with the implant in I practically punched through a wall.”

Kaidan laughed and Shepard smiled along with him. When Shepard opened his eyes, Kaidan’s own deep amber ones were staring into his. He swallowed hard.

“I stopped boxing. Hid my biotics. Bussed tables for a year. I enlisted on my 18th birthday. I boarded the shuttle with a backpack full of money and a spare shirt.” Shepard fell silent, as if staring into Kaidan’s eyes became more important than telling any more of the story.

“You’re a fascinating man, Shepard.”

Shepard shrugged and began to deny it, but Kaidan cut him off with a deep kiss. Accepting greedily, Shepard brushed his thumb over Kaidan’s eyelids, pulled back long enough to ask Kaidan to open his eyes. When their lips met again, they moved slow, Kaidan gazing deep into his eyes.

“Thank you for trusting me with all that, Shepard.” Kaidan held Shepard’s face between his palms.

“Well, now you know where I come from.”

“You haven’t had an easy life, but I like the man it’s made you.” Kaidan said with a smirk.

“…I told _you_ that.” Ben quirked an eyebrow.

“You’re not the only one who can remember old conversations.” Kaidan chuckled, giving Shepard a smoldering look, “I used to think about you saying that a lot.”

“So you’re still okay dating a man who used to steal for a living?”

“Mmmm,” Kaidan kissed his throat, “Makes some of the pieces fall into place.”

Shepard pulled back with questioning smirk. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Kaidan cocked an eyebrow and meaningfully looked at the case full of models either ‘found’ or ‘negotiated for’.

“You do kinda ransack places for money and mods when we’re on a mission.”

Shepard blinked. “…what?”

Kaidan placed a hand on Shepard’s head “Nevermind. Forget I brought it up.”

“But… what?” He asked again, clueless.

“Let’s just say it explains why you’d gravitate to dark corners to work on your models.”

“I was afraid.” Shepard frowned, “I would’ve thought you meant about how I blow stuff up and kill a bunch of guys. If you haven’t noticed, making models takes up a fairly small percentage of my time. I’m much better at blowing things up than put them together.”

“Come on, Shepard! That’s not true.”

Shepard was quiet for a moment, “He made it a gun…” he said softly, “the visualization of the software that could destroy the Reaper code… Legion made it look like a gun… so it would be something familiar to me. Legion has spent years studying me, he knows more about me than most. He made it a gun.”

Kaidan silenced him with another kiss, “Curing the genophage, working with the quarians now… that’s not just about blowing up the Reapers, Shepard. You’re putting the whole galaxy together.”

“All at the barrel of a gun. How many geth did I kill in that consensus, all in the name of peace? It might be bringing people together, but it looks exactly like blowing things up… I don’t want to lead this crew into the kind of crimes the Sands led me into. Not now that I’ve finally started to…” He shook his head, eyelids closing.

“Everything’s gonna come around again, Shepard: the same old wars and… the same old problems. But every time the wheel turns around we learn a little bit more. We’ve never seen a threat like this before, and because of you we’ve never seen peace like this, either. That’s what you’re doing.”

Shepard lay there a moment, laying close to Kaidan, softly caressing the side of his face, “Alright, Kaidan.”

“Alright.” Kaidan smiled, satisfied for the moment, “Maybe going inside the virtual representation of the geth consciousness won’t be the most interesting chapter in your biography after all, huh?”

“Long as it has a happy ending.” Shepard let his head fall back to the bed, a tired smile on his face as Kaidan’s fingers slipped through his hair. He shifted when a twinge of pain shot through his side.

“I suppose I’ll be happy as long as I get my chapter in the Shepard biography,” Kaidan chuckled, pushing himself up to allow Shepard to shift into a more comfortable position.

“You better feature in more than just one chapter!” Shepard scoffed.

“Well, maybe a long chapter...” Kaidan teased.

“Every chapter from now on,” Shepard mumbled, eyes falling closed.

“Hm? What?” Kaidan tipped his head up.

“N’thing,” Shepard turned his head into Kaidan’s shoulder.  
  
++

The casualty reports from the quarian fleet continued to roll in through the night, the admirals organizing the military and civilian fleets into attack waves. They were ready to move on the Normandy's signal, and simulations showed the projected deaths to be extreme and 'acceptable.' Still, though the combined quarian and geth fleets would choke the skies above Rannoch, it was nothing compared to the Reaper forces that prowled around the galaxy, swarming Citadel worlds and reducing them to ash. 

Shepard had been having nightmares since they'd left Earth. But in that liminal zone between wakefulness and sleep there were no nightmares, and he dozed in Kaidan's arms, and the past and the present blended together in the quiet rhythm of Kaidan's sleeping breaths. So when he got up hours later, Shepard would not have the heart to wake him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:   
> The mission to save Admiral Koris gets to Shepard and Kaidan notices. EDI locates Kaidan's lost book series.
> 
> Rescue Admiral Koris


	9. The Difference between 'Commander' and 'Ben'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saving Admiral Koris. The quarian conflict is wrapping up, and Shepard is having to make more and more choices about who lives and who dies. He's good at it, and this bothers him a little bit. Kaidan notices that Shepard was a bit out of sorts in their last battle.

 

“Oh! Commander Shepard, e-excuse me”

The door to the crew quarters had slid open as Shepard approached, and an occupied Chief Jeffers had almost collided with him.

“At ease, Chief. You seem pretty busy,” Shepard held up a hand.

“Umm, yes sir! Sure am, sir! Specialist Traynor suggested that the O2 scrubbers weren’t running at peak efficiency but I told her that EDI would probably spot something like that, since she monitors all the Life Support systems, but Specialist Traynor thought that maybe the physical apparatus could have fallen out of sync and EDI would be getting false readings on the max efficiency, unless of course she came down and actually looked at herself, which I suppose she can do now that she has a body…” His gaze was sweeping every centimeter of the corridor to avoid Shepard’s face.

“…uh-huh.” Shepard drummed his fingers against his leg, cast a quick glance over the Jeffer’s shoulder into the crew quarters.

“S-sorry, sir. Got a bit carried away.” The service chief tapped his data-pad awkwardly, still blocking the door. “Something you needed, Commander?”

“Just walking around, Jeffers. I like to see my ship once in a while.” Shepard smiled, eyes trailing over Jeffer’s head again to look into the crew quarters.

“Oh! Of course sir. Umm, come on in… I just was—“

“As you were, Chief.” He patted Jeffers on the shoulder, “Sounds like you have some business in Life Support, I don’t mean to keep you.”

“Th-Thank you, Commander.” Jeffers awkwardly slipped past and Shepard stepped into the crew quarters. It took him only a moment to locate Kaidan on one of the bottom bunks, clutching his head, but clearly stifling laughter. Shepard walked over.

“Shepard, hey,” Kaidan said, opening his eyes to slits in the light, still chuckling at Shepard’s encounter. Shepard cast a look back over his shoulder. “Relax, Shepard. It’s just me in here right now with Jeffer’s gone. Have a seat.” He shuffled on his bed to give him room.

“He seemed…”

“Intimidated,” Kaidan finished for him, and he nodded.

 “I barely remembered his name.” Shepard frowned, “I used to know everybody on this ship, even the Cerberus people. Especially the Cerberus people. I don’t think I’ve ever even talked to him before. What’s wrong with me?”

“Well, he always gets some coffee alone in the mess when he finishes his software updates, if you want to catch him and try to get to know him.” Kaidan lifted the data-pad off his chest and set it beside his bed.

“Thanks.” Shepard’s focus had been distracted watching Kaidan’s pained expression. “Headache?”

“Yeah, bit of a flare-up. Nothing major, I’ll be ready by the time the intel comes in on the Reaper Base.” He gave Shepard’s knee a squeeze. “But how are you doing?”

“Good. Mission went as well as can be expected.” Shepard shifted his position, resting one leg on the bed.

“Still a shame about everyone lost. The people that died down there sure weren’t soldiers.”

“Yeah.” The muscles in Shepard’s jaw were tight. Kaidan cracked his eyes open a little wider.

“Made me think about… what we talked about last night.” He said, barely more than a whisper. “Sorry to bring that up…”

“No, it’s okay. I… get that it should bother me. But it doesn’t anymore. It makes me feel guilty. But not… traumatized.” Shepard smiled, managing a warmth of expression even through tension in his brow.

“If you say so…” Kaidan quirked an eyebrow.

“Trust me, there’s plenty going on in the present to bother me without having to think about the past.”

“Okay.” Kaidan closed his eyes again, easing his head back into the pillow. “Let’s hope Koris can drum up some supprt. Otherwise the quarians are going to have a tough time beating that geth fleet.”

“I want to get this conflict resolved.” Shepard shook his head. “There’s a bigger war going on, and it affects the geth as much as the quarians.”

“You made the right call, Shepard.”

“Hm?”

“Saving Koris. It was the right move.” Kaidan’s eyes were fully opened now, but it was clearly a struggle. He rubbed a hand up Shepard’s arm.

“I know. But… thank you.”

“Good. You’ve had to make some tough calls lately. I wanted to make sure you had made peace with this one.”

Shepard nodded and sat in silence for a moment. “Those people died because they believed what Korris believed. It was an easy decision for me to make, the fleet needs Korris…” He trailed off, cast a sidelong glance at Kaidan, “Should it have been so easy?”

“I…” Kaidan rubbed the back of his neck, “I don’t know, Shepard.” Shepard violently shook his head.

“Nevermind, it doesn’t matter now. It’s done. The burden’s on him now to make sure that their belief wasn’t misplaced.”

“Mmmm. You can empathize, huh?” Kaidan’s hand gently squeezed his shoulder. Shepard’s eyes had been locked on the floor.

“Yeah…” he sighed. “I guess I can.”

“He’s not going to get very far without the support of the whole fleet. Without close personal friends like Tali he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on even with all that idealism. And if you hadn’t saved him two hours ago on Rannoch, he’d be dead from all that idealism.”

“You’re right.” Shepard nodded with a sigh.

“…and _now_ ,” Kaidan cracked an apologetic smile, “d’you wanna talk to me about what happened down there?”

“On Rannoch? _What_ happened?” Shepard’s smile held, but some of the light went out of his eyes.

“The AA guns.”

“We got them shut down.”

“Before that. We talked to that quarian engineer—“

“Dorn’Hazt.”

“…yeah. He told us to give his son—“ he held up a hand before Shepard could supply the name, “—his son _Jona_ a message. You seemed upset.”

“You see everything, huh, Major?” Shepard’s face was blank, “It’s like you said, it’s never easy seeing dead civilians.”

“Yeah.” Kaidan blinked heavily, “At first I didn’t notice it—thought you were moving you a little faster than usual. But then at the AA guns. When you jumped out of the turret to take on those Primes…”

Shepard managed a shrug and a smile, “The skirmish was over by the time I left the turret.” Kaidan’s lip twisted into a frown. The blazing light from his omni-tool activating momentarily dazed him, but he cracked just one eye open to scroll through some files, tapped at the interface. The data-pad next to him chirruped. He activated the vid file and handed it to Shepard: it was a file from Kaidan’s helmet cam, a memory—of sorts—in the palm of Shepard’s hand. Kaidan had watched the file a few times already, and watched Shepard’s face instead.

_Kaidan is positioned near the control platform where Tali has set to work disabling the gun. Severeal geth units have appeared with a vanguard of Primes. The sound of Kaidan’s breathing is even on the data recorder as he lobs an overload, catching one of the troopers that bobbles into his aim. The trooper sparks, explodes on the spot._

_Shepard has taken up the turret left nearby. Kaidan’s focus shifts to watch his blind spots, but in the movement he pauses on the commander’s face for just a second. His face, normally impassive in even the most heated firefight, is a mask of crease lines, brow overshadowing his eyes._

_A Prime appears, flanking Shepard’s position. Kaidan is practically back to back with Tali, giving her cover even while exposing himself to fire. Still, he overloads the Prime’s shield before it can strike from behind._

_“Shepard! On your four!” His breath rasps, and he reaves the same Prime._

_Shepard glances over his shoulder at the staggered Prime. But instead of swinging the turret, he leaps out, fist glowing…_

_The blast makes the camera feed flicker: the massive energy of the flare causing the other geth forces to dive for cover. There’s a curse from Tali when the entire platform rocks, the heat of the wave cresting over them._

_The geth stumbles off, engulfed in biotic fire, with Shepard right after him, the dark energy beading off his barrier with a crackling hiss. Surveying the remaining geth over his shoulder, he delivers a single shotgun blast to the burning Prime, and it explodes against his shield._

_“Shepard, back in the turret—“ Kaidan’s cry turns to a curse when Shepard grits his teeth, throws his shoulders back…_

_“Going,” Shepard barks, crackles purple._

_“Stay safe!”_

_But Kaidan is yelling after the bolt of light Shepard has become. He charges into the furthest Prime just before Kaidan manages another overload-reave combo, but the major’s help is hardly necessary: the command-unit is dead before the reave can even detonate._

_Flanking the next Prime from behind, Shepard’s nova blasts it to its knees, his blue-wreathed fist punching through its body._

_Before the shuddering cackle of the dying Prime can transform into the whine that signals its imminent detonation, Shepard has charged after the last._

_He fights it hand to hand behind a half-wall, and Kaidan focuses on eliminating the troopers pressing in. The camera feed jitters as their bolts fizzle off his barrier, absorbing any fire on Tali’s position._

_There is a rhythmic pounding: concussion waves on the air, the crackle of ozone, then Shepard’s shockwave tears down the gangway and flings the last trooper into the air just as Kaidan takes it in his sights._

_Shepard appears from behind the low wall, shield snapping back into place. The look on his face is clinically resolute. He stops near where the geth flails on the air. He calmly pops his heat-sink and replaces it._

_Without a look, he blast off the trooper’s head and approaches the platform._

Kaidan reached across Shepard’s lap to pause the playback. He’d been rubbing his eyes, avoiding the light streaming out of the display while Shepard watched the record, but now he focused on reading the commander’s expression.

Shepard smirked ruefully down at the blank pad for a moment, and when he turned to catch Kaidan’s eye, a weariness had crept up behind his smile.  He lay the pad down and folded his hands in his lap, back bowing over.

“Were you okay?” Kaidan said softly at last, leaning as far out of the shadow of the upper bunk as his squinting would allow to try to catch a glimpse of Shepard’s face.

“Seemed like a pretty surgical strike to me,” Shepard murmured quietly.

“I mean,” Kaidan chuckled, “ _yeah._ But… You’re not the sort to abandon a turret in the middle of a fight. You’re… too efficient for that.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. You were angry. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you fight angry.”

“Wasn’t angry.” It was barely a whisper.

“No? I know you well enough by now to know when you’re bullshitting me.” He smiled, “You don’t have to tell me anything just… don’t pretend like nothing’s wrong if… you’re hurting.” He touched Shepard’s arm, and the man started at the touch. With a sigh, he patted Kaidan’s hand.

“Jona doesn’t have a father anymore.” Shepard stared at the deck, but his expression was softer than his tone. “It shouldn’t have bothered me. But I was in that turret and when the Prime surprised me... it was the only thing on my mind. And it isn’t even the geth’s fault… the admirals pushing for this war… but they’ve been chased out of their home… but after what I saw in the geth consensus, the way the uprising went down…” he rolled his eyes, “Hard to know what to think. To figure out if there’s a right way to go about anything.”

“That’s okay to feel that way, Shepard. War is… it’s terrible. We know that better than most.”

Shepard shook his head,

“No we don’t. We’re trained for this. But Dorn’Hazt was a father. He wasn’t prepared. Jona isn’t prepared.” He took a deep breath, a flicker of a smile on his lips when he exhaled through his nose. “After last night I was thinking about how I grew up without anyone. I had never thought about it before. It was just the way things were. I’ve never talked about my life with anyone. You know… I never used to think about children.”

“Yeah, I guess everyone pays the price of the war one way or another,” Kaidan replied weakly.

“In Vancouver there was a boy that used to play outside my window. He’s dead now.”

“You don’t know that, Shepard, maybe he got an evac shuttle—“

“I watched him die. Tried to help him out of some rubble while Anderson and I were running to the LZ, but he ran away from me. I saw him board an evac shuttle, then the Reapers got it.”

Kaidan left a long pause before replying.

“That’s a terrible thing to see.”

“…got me thinking. Of course he didn’t come with me, why would he? I wanted to stay on Earth, to fight the Reapers to save as many people as possible… but I didn’t have the skills…” He laughed, tinged with irony, but loud and long. “Didn’t have the skills to convince a _child_ to come with me. And I guess all that clicked last night. Wondering if all I had to offer the galaxy was my gun and my fists. I don’t’ know what to do with this war, but I can… I can kill whatever ends up in front of me.”

“Shepard, hey,” Kaidan began, but as he tried to sit up, Shepard rushed to ease him back down into the pillow with a shush even as Kaidan was trying to speak over his shushing and struggling to sit up.

“No, no, I’m fine, Kaidan—“

“—you’re putting the galaxy together Shep—“

“—honestly, I don’t want your head to—“

“—gotta save everyone we can but—“

“—just talking about it has helped—“

“—so much more! _So_ much more—“

They both stopped, Shepard with one hand pushing Kaidan’s chest into the pillow and Kaidan poised to spring out of bed if need be. Shepard snorted and soon both men had dissolved into a nervous release of laughter.

“I uh… guess I got carried away trying to get you to relax,” Shepard chuckled, brushing the back of his hand across his forehead.

“But seriously,” Kaidan said, still bearing a wide grin, “Are you okay? Don’t bottle this stuff up, Shepard.”

“Funny coming from you.” Shepard cocked an eyebrow and Kaidan sneered in mock derision. “Seems like I have to beg you to tell me what you’re thinking about.”

“Well take it from me, then!”

“Heh, I’m fine. I will be. I… want to talk more about this, but I need some time to process it. You…” he smiled, uncertain, “’You know me.’ Huh?”

“Not as well as I’d like to.” Kaidan chuckled, wincing and pinhing the bridge of his nose. They sat still on the bed for a while, Shepard stretching a kink in his bowed back and Kaidan rubbing his neck.

When Shepard sighed and looked down, Kaidan’s light breathing was pushing his chest tightly against his uniform “You know, my bed’s more comfortable,” he said with a sly grin.

“I remember.”

“You should crash there when you have a migraine.”

“Oh?”

“Sure. It’s dark. It’s quiet.”

“It’s got a great view,” Kaidan said. Shepard’s seductive grin exploded into a full-on smile. “I appreciate it Shepard, but the meds are starting to kick in and I should get back to my reports.”

Shepard reached to put a hand on Kaidan’s chest, then watched the hatch for a minute and opted to give Kaidan’s leg a quick squeeze.

“Always figured you for a man who needs windows. Needs to see the sky.” He smirked.

“Oh do I?” Kaidan retorted.

“Yeah. Or the stars, at least.”

“You’re just trying to get me into your bed.” Kaidan managed a wink.

“Yes and no…” Shepard looked wistful. “Keep it in mind. Any time.”

“I will,” Kaidan chuckled, made a little wave. “Enjoy your walk.”

“…my walk?”

“Having a look around you ship? Ring a bell?”

“Oh, umm… yeah. That’s what I told Jeffers… yeah.” Shepard stood up.

Kaidan laughed, grabbed his hand, “We’ll talk about this later, Shepard, okay?”

“Alright.”

“And… not just Vancouver, let’s talk about the pressure, too. You’re under a lot of stress…”

Shepard smiled mildly, “I appreciate that, but I’m fine.”  
  
Kaidan looked up at him, worry overriding the squint of pain in his eyes. He sighed, resigned. “Okay, Commander.”

“Hm… You haven’t called me Commander one-on-one in a long time.”

“Sometimes you’re ‘Shepard,’ and you talk things out. Sometimes you’re ‘the Commander,’ and you need to keep things locked up.” Kaidan shrugged.

“…you could call me ‘Ben’, you know.”

Kaidan grinned, “I think I’d like that.”

Shepard ran hand along the top bunk, beamed down at Kaidan on the mattress.

“Well, guess I’ll try to catch up with Chief Jeffers.” He turned at the hatch to smile back one last time before leaving Kaidan alone.

Kaidan closed his eyes, drawing in a tense breath through his teeth, but he laughed to himself when he exhaled. The crew quarters were quiet for a few minutes, and Kaidan opened his eyes experimentally, drumming his fingers on the data-pad lying next to him on the bunk.

“EDI?” He said under his breath.

“Major?” The disembodied voice came through the comms with equal softness.

“Any luck on… umm… those books my father used to read? It’s not really a priority just… wondering.”

“Yes, Major,” the voice replied brightly, “I had not wanted to disturb you during a migraine, but I may have found what you wanted.”

“Oh?” Kaidan opened his eyes fully.

“A series of three novels matching the criteria you mentioned. Published in the second half of the twentieth century. _The Deptford Trilogy,_ by Robertson Davies.”

“So far so good.” He folded his arms, tapping his thumb against a rib. “What’s the first one about? That’s the only one I remember back when my dad… Well. What’s it about, anyway?”

“ _Fifth Business:_ Dunstan Ramsay, a retiring professor of history at an all-boy’s school, writes a memoir of his life and how he has come to hold the opinions he does concerning the role of myths, legends, and hagiography in recounting history,” the voice recounted lightly.

“Is there a magician in it?” Kaidan’s eyebrows went up.

“Yes. Magnus Eisengrim.”

“That’s it!” Kaidan snapped his fingers.

“Shall I download the trilogy to your files, Major?”

“Just… let me know where I can buy it… maybe with annotations or something.” The smile slid from his face. “Who knows if I’ll get the time to read them… and I might start with the third book. That’s the only one I haven’t read, technically. Was always dad’s favorite…” He trailed off.

“…I have sent you the link, Major.” EDI’s voice said softly. Kaidan’s omni-tool beeped.

“Thank you, EDI. How long till the quarian fleet’s ready for the final assault on Rannoch?”

“They did not specify. A matter of hours.”

“Alright. And… would you please… keep track of Shepard’s suit data?”

“I already monitor and record all vitals during missions, Major.”

“I know, just… pay special attention, okay? Discreetly?”

“…acknowledged, Major.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:  
> After brokering peace between the geth and the quarians, Kaidan and James have a game of poker in the lounge. James seems very curious about Shepard. Turns out Kaidan is the foremost expert.
> 
> Invite Traynor to Cabin  
> (Invite Allers, if it hasn't happened yet)  
> Destroy Reaper on Rannoch  
> Save Geth and Quarians


	10. The Difference between Honor and Getting the Job Done

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard has brokered peace between the geth and the quarians, and faced off against a Reaper. James is more than a little interested in grilling Kaidan about the hero Commander over a game of poker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's another shorty Chapter to serve as a ligature between story arcs.

“How big was the Reaper?” Vega asked.

“Uhh, not one of the capital ships. About as big as some of the ones we saw in Vancouver.” Kaidan drummed his fingers on the poker table.

“And the commander…”

“Yep. Just ran right up underneath it.”

“ _Mierda!”_ James shook his head with a grin. “That’s big even for the commander, huh?”

“Heh. Yeah!”

Four or five games in and James had finally gotten around to asking Kaidan about the fight with the Reaper on the surface of Rannoch. Other than that, the talk around the table had been sparse, and finally both men were comfortable enough with one another to banter about Kaidan’s near miss with a geth Pyro, Tali taking out a Prime with only her combat drone, and—of course—Shepard leaping out of a speeder to battle a Reaper one on one. It served the added benefit, perhaps, of distracting Vega from any tells Kaidan might be giving off.

Though they were talking freely now, Kaidan’s face had scrunched in consternation as he recounted his memory of Shepard jumping out of the transport to stand-up to a half-kilometer tall, eons-ancient super robot. Kaidan had watched from a distance as the speeder ran on as the targeting beam allowed the orbital fleet to knock the Reaper to its knees, and yet with each searing blast that the Reaper swept across the desert in return, Kaidan had held his breath.

He had left this particular detail out of his recounting of the story. James dealt the turn.

“So _Loco—_ the commander. You and him go way back right?” Vega leaned forward on the card-table, Kaidan resolving his expression into one effortlessly impassive.

“Not _way_ back. We met—uh—first served together on the SR-1.”

“But he takes you on just about every mission. You’ve seen him fight, yeah?” James looked up beneath a furrowed brow.

“Yeah. I mean, I guess I’ve been in enough firefights with him, sure.” He chuckled and checked his cards.

“What’s it like watching him fight?” James’ stare was boring into Kaidan’s eyes; he was practically at the edge of his seat.

“What’re you getting at, Vega?”

Vega tried to assume a casual posture, but he wasn’t entirely successful. “Well, y’know. He’s kinda a legend, right? I mean… N7. Akuze. Spectre. Hero of the Citadel. I just--“ he shook his head and leaned forward. “Alright, look, we had a little bit of a dance down in the shuttle bay, you know, just a little spar right? Shepard kicked my ass, no sweat. I was best in my squad in hand-to-hand, _por dios_. I mean, I know Shepard’s a good soldier, but I wasn’t holding back or nothing. So I figured, maybe if I can figure out what makes him tick… you know…”

Kaidan raised an eyebrow and smirked, “You spar with all your commanding officers, Vega?”

“I mean, how often do you get to give a legend a black eye? That’s the kinda story that gets you free drinks in Purgatory, you know?”

“Bragging rights! Ha!” Kaidan chuckled and leaned back, “Alright Vega, what do you wanna know?” James did nothing to disguise his eagerness this time, thudding his elbows up on the table and leaning in.

“You ever seen Shepard in trouble? I mean… like **really** in over his head?”

“You were listening… right? About the Reaper…?”

“Nyah!” James rolled his eyes, “You know what I mean: has he ever said… like ‘ohh this is it this time’ or… just… been in way over his head?”

“In a fight? Not really. He can clear a room of mercs before they can raise a gun...”

“Yeah! I saw that on Mars, it’s like he knows where everyone is before he walks into a room.” Vega rapped the table-top, looked up and over Kaidan’s shoulder. “…you think that’s because of the N7 training?”

“Could be. Or could be why they wanted him for N7.” That made James frown.

“…but he kinda sucks with assault rifles, right? I mean, he never packs one in his load out.”

“I dunno… last time I ever saw him use an assault rifle was… man. Eden Prime? He’s a surgeon with a heavy pistol.”

“And he plays things real honorable-like, right? I mean, you’ve seen him in tons of fights. How does he handle himself?”

Kaidan studied James’ face before responding. “I don’t know. You’re talking about the man that basically just told a geth platform to start uploading advanced Reaper AI, sure that he could end a three hundred year old war in the time it took the upload to finish,” Kaidan mused. James’ eyebrows shot up at that. “There’s no question that Shepard’s honorable. But he’s going to get the mission done. I’ve seen him negotiate with a salarian doctor—real madman—but Shepard was gonna take him into custody. But the _second_ he realized the doctor wasn’t coming in without causing collateral damage, Shepard dropped him before I could get a barrier up.”

“…shit.” Vega’s eyes had a sparkle to them.  “So, quick reflexes, huh?”

“Yeah but also…” Kaidan swallowed, “quick judgments.”

“D’you think he learned _that_ in N7 training?”

“Doubt it. N7 isn’t very heavy on the negotiating skills, or on battle-field psychology.”

James huffed again, leaned back in his chair.

“…how come? I mean. You’re the Second Human Spectre. You never… N7… never really…?” James made a little indistinct gesture with his hand.

Kaidan chuckled, upping his bid on the data-pad they were using as the pot, “Never got an invitation to the Villa until I taught there. I was a little older when I enlisted, plus they had ‘medical concerns’ about my L2.”

“Your implant?”

“Yeah. Old model, spikes high but takes a toll.”

“But you taught there, yeah?”

Kaidan nodded, “In charge of the First Special Ops Biotics Division. I had just graduated some N6s before Vancouver.”

“Wow…” he fidgeted in his seat, “So… tell me what N7 training’s like?”

“James, honestly I worked there for just about a year and most of that time was in the field kicking my students’ asses. I can talk to you all day about the missions Shepard and I went on, but if you want an inside look at N7, you’re gonna have to talk to the commander.”

“Yeah, yeah. Of course. I was just… uhhh,” he averted his eyes, “not trying to figure out too much about N7 just…”

“Mhm.” Kaidan quirked an eyebrow.

“Just shooting the shit, y’know? You and the commander seem tight.” James offered at last with a shrug.

Kaidan sniffed a laugh, “Oh?” His posture had been growing tenser as they talked.

“Yeah. Like you really get each other.”

“So you’ve talked to him about me too, then, huh? Thinking of having a sparring match with me, Vega?”

“Naw, nothin’ like that. Just, you don’t get to know someone as well as you know the commander without them getting to know you too, right?”

“I guess.”

Vega tried to settle himself back into a stoic poker face. He leaned forward again almost immediately, though.

“So you were in the Battle of the Citadel? I read about it but I’ve always wanted to ask… what was it like? I would ask Shepard but… I dunno.”

“What don’t you know?”

“You just seem, I dunno. More of a people person.”

“I think I’ll take that as a compliment.” Kaidan grinned, a little more naturally than he had been so far, “Hope you’ll feel the same after I school you with this flush. Are you calling, Lieutenant?

“Oh, yeah. Sure I call.” He tapped the data-pad haphazardly. “So you did a mag-boot walk up the Citadel Tower while the second fleet was pummeling that geth dreadnought? Or, I guess it was a Reaper, huh?”

“Nah. The fleet hadn’t even joined the fight yet. The Citadel arms were still closed. We made it up to the council chamber and opened the arms, called the fleet in.”

“Hmmm. I wonder if the commander regrets sending in the fleet to save the Council now. They’ve been doing nothing but fucking us over since this started. Maybe some of those ships would’ve come in handier than a bunch of bullshit politicians.”

“He doesn’t.” Kaidan’s reply was curt.

“…uhhh…”

“One thing you’re gonna learn about the commander, Vega, is that he’s going to get the job done. But at the end of the day Shepard knows what the universe is really about. But when he saves the galaxy, he’s going to make sure he doesn’t sacrifice the galaxy’s soul to do it.”

They sat in silence as James flipped the river, the two men punching their wagers into the data-pad. Kaidan was all in.

“Hell, Major. I don’t even know what that means.”

“Shepard understands that it’s not enough to just defeat the Reapers. _We’ve_ got to beat the Reapers together; it’s the only way to break the cycle. Shepard didn’t save the Council because of some idea about honor, he did it because _that’s_ the only way to really get the job done.”

James gave him a long, confused frown.

“Still doesn’t make much sense. Think I’ll get it if I stick around long enough?”

“No doubt Vega.” Kaidan looked up, “Now it’s time to win my money back.”

The door to the observation deck slid open and Shepard entered. Kaidan only spared a second of distraction before showing his hand.

“Got the flush,” Kaidan smirked.

“Mmmm. Full house. Caught it on the river.

“…Shit!”

 “Thought you were bluffing about the flush.” The cockiness was expertly sublimated in Vega’s tone. “Good for you.”

“Can it, Lieutenant!”

“Yes sir, Major Alenko, sir!” Vega chuckled.

Shepard walked up to the table with a wry expression.

“Shepard,” Kaidan tried to twist his scowl into a smile. “I’d deal you in, but Vega just cleaned me out.”

“Come on!” James taunted, “That really as deep as your pockets go? No sentimental crap stowed away? Investments?” His faux-casual posture had locked in the minute Shepard walked through the door.

“I’ve got some land on the Sunshine Coast I could put up?” Kaidan replied dryly.

“Heh! I’ll pass,” Vega chuckled. Kaidan glanced up at Shepard, idly surveying the table before fixing Kaidan in a steady gaze, a sparkle in his eyes.

“That was quite the negotiation you pulled off,” Kaidan said. “Having both the quarians and the geth on our side? That’s a very good thing.”

Vega was inspecting his winnings on the data-pad, not quite looking up at the commander, but occasionally glancing between the two. Shepard didn’t reply, smiling wider when Kaidan allowed himself a smirk.

There was the soft beep of the data-pad: Vega scrolling to the bottom of the listing, then back to the top, then back down, over and over before setting it down to shuffle the cards. The silence was stretching on.

“…totally took down a Reaper.” Kaidan cocked an eyebrow.

“Yep, sure did!” Shepard said at last.

“Yes you did!” Vega joined in.

“Ho yeah!”

“And you know,” Kaidan jumped in as the bro-bonding moment lapsed into awkward silence again, “I’m just gonna have to go with you on trusting the geth. I hope it works out.”

Shepard nodded and drummed his fingers on the chair. He glanced at James briefly, now shuffling and reshuffling the cards.

“So let’s talk about that, then,” Shepard supplied with a wry smirk.

 “…Yeah, let’s talk later,” Kaidan said, his voice a conspiratorial rasp. Shepard looked at Kaidan a moment, raising his eyebrows in understanding when Kaidan ever so subtly lifted an eyebrow in Vega’s direction. Shepard nodded, gave James a light slap on the back, and exited. Vega glanced up once the door had slid closed.

“Did the commander seem alright to you?”

“He did. Why?”

“Just seemed a little… I don’t know. Definitely had a spring in his step. Usually if he’s in the room he just wants to know something, then he’s out.” James fiddled with his data-pad, “You… you don’t think he heard me asking about him, do you?”

Kaidan chuckled and stood up, “I don’t think he did, James. Congratulations on your winnings, you son of a bitch.”

“Major… thanks for the talk. Like I said, I don’t get it. But… I’ll keep my eyes open, okay?”

“That’s the best any of us can do, Lieutenant. Let me know if I can help you process this at all.”

By the time Kaidan made it to the door of the lounge, the lift had already closed. He made for the Starboard lounge to begin his report, requested an update on the ETA to Mahavid and the Dr. Garneau mission.

After staring at a blank data-pad for some time, he sank into the lounge chair in the corner and called up _Fifth Business_ on his data-pad.  It was a fairly recent republishing of his father’s favorite novel: it had all manner of annotations explaining not only the region of Ontario and those turns of phrase which had disappeared from the language in 200 years, but also the particular Canadian relationship to the First World War which readers in the author’s time would have taken for granted. It also had two brand new introductions.

Kaidan thumbed passed them. After reading the first three pages of the actual text, however, he flipped back and read the most recently written introduction, which established the novel (and to a greater extent the trilogy) as an exploration of the creation of mythical figures out of historical fact. And more than that: to what degree personal responsibility had a hand in that creation for the men-made-myth. Kaidan smiled lightly, rolled his eyes.

“Of course you’d like this book, dad.”

But when he turned back to the text, he consumed the first section of the novel fairly quickly, his pace slowing as he entered the section which briefly described the narrator’s time in the war. He stared at the bulkhead for a long time, made to shut down the pad when it asked him to select a passage to serve as a bookmark. Kaidan tapped the screen and highlighted:

> _“I knew that my heroic act was rather a dirty job I did when I was dreadfully frightened, I could just as easily have muddled it and been ingloriously killed. But it doesn't much matter, because people seem to need heroes; so long as I don't lose sight of the truth, it might as well be me as anyone else.”_

He tucked the pad into a shelf and made immediately for the lift and Shepard’s cabin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter follows on immediately after this.
> 
> Shepard's body is a mess, and Kaidan displays a new talent. Not as impressive as learning to Reave, maybe...
> 
> Invite Allers Up to Cabin for Geth/Quarian Interview


	11. The Difference between Surviving and Surviving Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night before a big mission, Shepard tends to go over old data over and over. Kaidan's there to calm him down and help him relax.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place immediately following the last.

Once he got to the lift, Shepard finally let the pain raging up his spine bow his back. He spent the short trip slumped against the wall, forcing himself to walk out of the elevator when it stopped outside his quarters. Allers wanted an interview, but as soon as the camera's were off, Shepard let himself slump. Taking off his uniform shirt was a struggle, and he re-settled his dog-tags beneath his white undershirt with a yawn.

He sat down at his terminal and read the few messages he had received. The message from Hackett regarding their assignment to locate Dr. Garneau—to track down this Leviathan clue—was still sitting on top of an impressive backlog. When he had read them all, he read them again: calls of support from faces forgotten and people he had never met, calls for help from every corner of the galaxy. He went into his trashed messages and re-read everything stored in the memory. Then he read all of it again. It took a long time, each re-read slower than the pass before it.

And yet, when the door to his cabin hissed and opened, he swiveled around in his chair with a grin. Seeing Kaidan step swiftly into the room, Shepard bolted up to him and threw his arms around his shoulders. Without a word he pressed his lips to Kaidan’s in a deep kiss. Kaidan hummed into the kiss, his hips pressing into Shepard’s as they held one another at the door.

“Sorry I’m late. Wanted to give you time on the QEC and get my report done, but I got distracted. I was hoping we’d be celebrating,” Kaidan murmured when they came up for air.

“Almost started celebrating in the lounge, until you waved me off from Vega. What’s up?” Without waiting for an answer, Shepard cupped Kaidan’s chin and drew him back into a kiss, letting his tongue roll against Kaidan’s. Kaidan had him around the waist, tilted his head to answer.

“He just has some personal stuff going on in his head, I think,” Kaidan said, trying to kiss the stubble on Shepard’s chin as Shepard laid soft kisses across his forehead, finding the gray at his temples just as Kaidan licked his throat. “Wanted someone to talk it over with. Don’t be surprised if he wants to talk to you sometime soon.”

“Nng. He doesn’t want to spar again does he?” Shepard ran his fingers through the gray and black hairs.

“I don’t think so. Although he did mention that.” Kaidan leaned in to kiss Shepard again, but Shepard practically bit his tongue with an anguished cry when Kaidan’s hand smoothed over his left hip. Kaidan pulled back immediately, tilted Ben’s head to inspect his face. “Whoa, sorry. I don’t like that look. You alright?”

Shepard winced again, “Got a little bruised…” He reached out for Kaidan again, but the other man grabbed his hand, kissed it, and led him toward the bed.

“Hang on, lemme get a look at your back.”

“Kaidan I’m fine, more than fine.” Shepard pulled back on Kaidan’s hand, palming his ass through his pants as he was led to the bed. “I’m feeling damn good.”

Kaidan turned at the touch, the expression of worried frustration on his face melting into one of seductive mystery.

“I’m about to make you feel even better. And if you hurry the hell up, I’ll even make it sexy,” he smirked. Shepard raised an eyebrow. “Take off your shirt. Lay on the bed. I’m gonna give you a massage.”

“A massage, huh?” Shepard’s eyes skeptically scanned down Kaidan’s uniform to his crotch.

“Come on, Shepard! Most guys would kill for this.”

“Alright.” Shepard sighed, eyebrows still furrowed. “Sounds nice. How do you plan to make it sexy?” Shepard asked, standing back and slipping off the white undershirt. He stifled a yawn.

“Other than the fact that I’m about to be rubbing my hands all over your body? I guess I hadn’t really thought further than that.” He pushed Shepard onto the bed till he was prone and face down on top of the mattress. Beneath the shoulder blades, Shepard’s back was a patchwork of deep blues and purples, ragged edges of yellow showing the older bruises underneath. “Damn, Shepard. I don’t know if you know this, but your back is bruised to hell! Chakwas didn’t—no, of course you didn’t even go in for your post-mission physical, did you?” He ran his hand softly over hot skin and Shepard shifted just a little. “Didn’t even bother to put on an analgesic yourself.”

Kaidan briskly reached into the nightstand to retrieve the first aid kit kept there. Pulling it out revealed the small black bottle of lube just further back in the drawer which hadn’t been there last time. Kaidan smirked, but quietly closed the drawer. He returned to Shepard on the bed with a topical analgesic and dermal regenerating cream from the kit, and began rubbing it into Shepard’s bruises. He winced at first, but within a few minutes the analgesic had gone to work, though the bruised coloration would remain.

When he moved to stow the cream back in the kit, Shepard began to stand, “Well, thank you for the massage—“

“Get back down there, Shepard! Honestly…” Kaidan put on hand between Shepard’s shoulder blades and pushed him back into the mattress with an ‘oomph.’

“You really don’t need to—“

“Nuh uh. You’re gonna love this, promise.” He leaned over to kiss Shepard’s cheek, “Now in order to do this right, you need to tell me about what hurts and what kinds of cybernetic crap you’ve got happening in this body of yours.” Kaidan traced the outline of one of the more extreme bruises with the tip of his finger. Shepard shivered at the touch, but took a deep breath, hands balling up the sheets into his fist.

“Alright. Umm… my pelvis was almost entirely crushed. It’s mostly light alloys now. Most of my long bones have a stint or two. A couple of the primary nerve ganglia running up my spine are cybernetic. Most of my capillary exchanges are synthetic membranes, and a lot of the muscle tissue in my face, my chest, my legs and arms is VI governed cybernetic polymers.”

“…Damn, Shepard.”

Shepard smiled awkwardly, “I also installed a skeletal lattice and a musculature hardening weave…”

“You _installed_ that? Personally?”

“Well, Mordin Solus did. And he was a genius. I’m not too worried about those. On the Normandy, Cerberus woke me up before I was fully… reconstructed…” Shepard struggled with the word, “and I was hurting all the time—I didn’t mind,” he added quickly, “Except it made it hard to focus. Hard to sleep. Guess that’s why I got out of the habit. And I was on a suicide mission, so I figured any edge…” He trailed off when Kaidan’s fingers carded through his hair softly, the recollection becoming a deep yawn that made him squint his eyes.

“Shepard,” he chuckled, “you are the poster boy for some kind of extranet fetish site, you know that, right? You post what you just said to me online and somewhere someone like Joker will be finding a quiet corner to enjoy that sentence alone.”

“I think Joker likes his cybernetic fantasies a bit… curvier,” Shepard smirked.

Kaidan leaned down, gently pushing Shepard’s back into the mattress and kissing a gentle trail down Shepard’s spine as the tension began to melt out of Shepard’s shoulders.

“Guess I’ve got you all to myself then,” he whispered into the small of Shepard’s back. There was a faint whoosh as Kaidan’s biotics sparked online for just a second. This time when Kaidan’s hands traced the path he’d just made with his lips, they were hot. Kaidan snickered, “’Commander Shepard stars in: Bone Hardening Weave.’”

Shepard laughed too, and Kaidan’s smile widened to see his shoulders loosening, his legs spreading to find a more comfortable way to lie. Kaidan gently rubbed his hands over Shepard’s back, their heat absorbing into Shepard’s skin.

“Now you’ve really got to stay still for this,” Kaidan said softly; then there was another whoosh of biotics, and the bed glowed blue. Kaidan’s ten fingers gently took their places on Shepard’s skin one by one, gently outlining the curve of his shoulder blades, and then—

“Whoa! WHOA!” Shepard clenched the sheets tighter.

“How’s that feel?” There was a smile in Kaidan’s voice.

“It feels incredible, how did you—oomph.” Kaidan’s fingers came together with a crackle and began descending his spine. “How did you learn how to do—AGH! Do this?” The fingers spread out slowly to his sides.

“While I was holed up in the hospital, my special doctor took the opportunity to test out a bunch of new drug cocktails on me to try to get rid of my L2 headaches. Nothing really worked. But eventually, she brought in this asari massage therapist who was volunteering at the hospital.” Kaidan’s hands flared brighter blue as he placed his palms on the dense muscles on either side of the base of Shepard’s spine, “I was so bored she started giving me lessons in asari biotic acupressure.”

“It’s… mmm… feels incredible…”

“Thank you. I guess you could say it uses tiny, weak warp fields to work individual muscle strands. Most human biotics can’t generate fine enough fields. Lucky for me, the first year of brain camp was all about controlling little fields. So many kids broke their limbs just trying to get a handle on their biotics, Vyrnnus made everyone focus on small maneuvers and precise fields. Also, it was the only thing I could practice while I was trying to hide my biotics from people.”

Shepard issued forth a string of incomprehensible pleasure noises that roughly followed the prosody of English speech.

“Mmm. Thanks,” Kaidan smiled and twisted a knuckle into a deep knot on one side of Shepard’ spine, earning a delighted moan. “Now, this matron who taught me was amazing. She’d been doing it for 500 years. Apparently asari who want to do this start training at a very young age. They can generate a small enough field to be able to influence individual nerve endings. I’m never gonna be able to make a field that small, but I can do the big muscle ones well enough. We had some trial and error on figuring out the differences in how the technique affected humans vs. asari. I was kinda her guinea pig. But she was fascinated with expanding her knowledge, and she could usually work out any damage she caused pretty quickly. I was bored, what can I say.”

Shepard let his hand run lazily over the surface of the sheets, muscles quivering under Kaidan’s touch. Kaidan continued to work quietly, firmly massaging the planes of Shepard’s back, applying a focused amount of dark energy to key pressure points.

“Feels… feels…” Shepard yawned into sheets.

“Nice?”

“Nice…”

“You’re tired, Shepard,” Kaidan chuckled, sending a crackling wave through Shepard’s bruised muscles that made him open his eyes wide and moan. “You need to get more sleep.”

“Need to prep for Mahavid tomorrow. This Leviathan lead—“ He gasped at the sensations working across his skin. “Too important. Trail could already be cold.”

“We’re ready. Just… take it easy. You had a hard day. You need to give yourself a break.”

“I… oomph, what was that? Feels… amazing…” Shepard let his head fall back to the mattress.

“You’re beautiful, Shepard. I love seeing you like this. Just… relaxing.” Kaidan’s voice was dark and low. He gripped Shepard’s waist, thumbs intently kneading the hollow in the small of Shepard’s back.

“Your hands feel great,” Shepard murmured, struggling with cogency.

Kaidan continued the initial warm-up massage for about twice as long as was necessary, the energy pouring out of his hands pummeling deep into Shepard’s back, neck, and shoulders.

“Now, you need to tell me which parts of your body have been bothering you, and you’ve got to be honest about it,” he said, kissing the back of Shepard’s ear. He placed a hand on Shepard’s left hip. “Here?”

Shepard took a few deep breaths, raising his head up from the warm sheets.

“A little bit lower… further out…” He jerked in pain, “Yeah that’s it. Starts there and goes everywhere. All the way down the leg. It’s pretty deep.”

“I’ve never seen you react that badly. Must be a bad day for it, huh?”

“I did kill a Reaper today.”

Kaidan laughed and began loosening the tension around the hip. He breathed deeply and laid his palm flat on where the pain was radiating from. “When you jumped out of that transport to throw down with that Reaper…” Kaidan’s voice was quiet: barely able to contain the slight shake that had come upon him suddenly, “I just about lost my mind.”

“I’m sorry I worried you,” Shepard sighed.

Kaidan halted for a minute.

“…Oh.”

“What?” Shepard lifted his head, “You alright?”

“Yeah I’m alright. I suppose I’m just… so used to hearing you say ‘it was the only way’ or ‘it had to be done.’ …I was expecting… y’know what? Never mind what I was expecting.” He rubbed back up Shepard’s back.

“Kaidan, I know I can drive you crazy sometimes… I’m not really used to anybody worrying about me. And I know there are things I could do to put you at ease before I do… stunts. Like that.” His face sank into the sheets as Kaidan worked another pulse into his hip. “But I’m sick of running.”

The blue glow of Kaidan’s biotic flame dimmed and Kaidan removed his hands from Shepard’s back. “I can’t do this the way I need to through the uniform. I’m going to take your pants off.” Kaidan said. Shepard began to roll over but Kaidan stopped him. “I’ve got this, Shepard.” Spreading Shepard’s legs to kneel behind him, he reached under the man’s waist to unbutton his pants. Shepard only needed to raise his hips to let Kaidan pull his pants off in a smooth motion, leaving him nude on the bed. Kaidan made a quiet choked sound, “I’ll be damned if you don’t make it hard for a man to do his job, Shepard.”

“If you knew how many times I’ve thought that about you in the last week!” Shepard chuckled, a light quiver in the sound. But as Kaidan gently rubbed his hands over Shepard’s ass and down his thighs, the man issued a sigh of acceptance and again eased into the mattress. Kaidan moved his hand back to the pain hotspot on Shepard’s hip, sending a pulse immediately deep into the joint.

“So what did he say to you, anyway?”

Shepard had his eyes shut tight, relishing the feeling of his pain being blasted away by Kaidan’s touch, “Who? Vega?”

“The Reaper. The one you killed.”

“The usual. We cannot understand what they’re doing. They’re our salvation. We resist but it’s not going to work. Our harvest is inevitable.” Shepard’s sigh turned into a moan as Kaidan firmly gripped the top of his thigh, his hands hot, sending biotic waves that radiated up his back and deep into his loins.

“Kind of strange, don’t you think? That thing’s been around for millions of years…  has thousands of living programs inside, and as it’s dying it’s still focused on the mission.”

“What are you getting at?” Shepard lifted his head slightly.

“I’m not getting at anything Shepard.” Kaidan shook his head, “It’s just we know so little about them. Maybe we can’t understand them at all.”

“I understand enough to know they want to destroy us.”

“Sure. I mean, yeah. But if you would’ve asked me today what the best possible outcome would be with our meeting with the geth, I would’ve told you that they should all be exterminated. Like I said, I’m still not crazy on them achieving full sentience, or on them teaming up with us, but it worked out. And only you could see that. Peace between the geth and the quarians? I couldn’t have imagined that before you made it happen.”

“The Reapers are nothing like the geth.” Shepard’s tone was clipped.

“I think you’re right. All I’m saying is that the Reapers must really believe in what they’re doing. Not just programmed to do it, but really BELIEVE in it.”

“So what?”

Kaidan sighed and began focusing his energies down Shepard’s left leg, “I dunno, Shepard. I don’t know why I brought it up. What… what do you think?”

Shepard was silent for a long time, lost in thought as Kaidan’s biotic pulses loosened his joints, “I asked him why the Reapers were doing what they’re doing. I’m tired of running. Tired of guessing. They all say the same thing: that the answer is too big for us, but that this is the next stage in our evolution. I don’t like that answer. The Reapers have seen civilizations more advanced than us, but they don’t _know_ us. They may have… observed us. Might recognize a pattern. But that doesn’t mean you know somebody any more than…”

“…than?”

“Any more than me… ‘observing’ people helps me… know what people are really like. Or… helps me express what people mean to me… there’s always something missing.”

“You’re more perceptive than you know, Ben,” Kaidan said softly.

“Then maybe the Reapers are, too.” Shepard rolled his eyes.

“Maybe, but you can’t really be perceptive without… caring about the people you’re watching.”

“There’s only so far you can go before the ‘greater good’ argument doesn’t cut it anymore.” Shepard shifted uneasily, “If we’re just a big petri dish for them to experiment on, then what’s the point? Have we evolved specifically to fight them? Are we supposed to give up everything we know so that the next cycle, or the next, or the next can be… what? The Reaper ideal for organic life? No, I don’t think so.

“The cycles before us laid a foundation to help us destroy the Reapers, it’s time to let the experiment run wild. Time to see if we can save ourselves. If we destroy ourselves, at least we’ll know it was our own doing. And… I don’t believe that’s going to happen. But the only way we get a chance to find out is by beating the Reapers.” Shepard’s posture on the bed loosened as he heaved a great sigh. His eyes closed slowly, lost in the sensation of Kaidan’s warp pulses deep in his muscle tissue.

“And you think we’re up to the challenge? Both of them? Beating the Reapers and not destroying ourselves?”

“…I do.” Shepard yawned, and his voice was thick when he spoke again, “The galaxy is ready, we want to survive, and we want to survive is together. I just wish it didn’t take threat of extinction to bring us all together.”

“Yeah. These are tough times.” He rolled his knuckles against the top of Shepard’s thigh, and Shepard’s legs flexed involuntarily before relaxing. “After talking with Vega, I’ve been thinking about unique solutions to big problems.”

“Unique solutions?”

“Like you and brokering peace between the geth and the quarians. Until that moment on the cliff… that was an annihilate-or-be-annihilated choice. Vega was wondering how you learn to see things like that. I didn’t really uh… have a good answer for him.”

“I don’t know. You’ve just got to... help the people you can.” Shepard took a sharp breath when Kaidan’s thumb pressed into his tail-bone, the warp fields smoothing away the tension in the muscle fibers. “You have to know why you’re doing what you’re doing, live with the consequences, no matter how severe. Believe in what you’re doing. Recognize that you’re only human,” Shepard sighed, “but it’s not that easy, is it?”

Kaidan’s hands had returned to the small of his back, making soothing, warm circles. Kaidan’s lips softly touched the back of his neck, burying his face in Shepard’s warmth.

“No it isn’t,” Kaidan whispered, “but it’s good advice for right now, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Shepard whispered back, his muscles finally slouching into a state of real relaxation. His eyes closed fully and he started out of a doze when Kaidan carefully laid his weight on top of him.

“It’s advice I wish you’d take more often, huh?”

“I know, I know. Everyone tells me to relax more…” He trailed off when Kaidan’s hands stroked down his sides.

“You just need to find new ways to relax, hmm?” Kaidan’s hands were so warm they made Ben’s skin flush wherever they touched.

“Yeah…” he said groggily.

“I can’t get enough of you like this Shepard.” He nibbled at Shepard’s ear “The handsome man of my dreams, finally giving himself a break. Letting me touch him all over, letting me take some of the strain off those tired soldier’s bones.” Shepard hunched his shoulders up to allow Kaidan’s arms to squeeze around him, both of Kaidan’s hands settling over his heart, beating rhythmically against the mattress.

“That felt good, Kaidan,” he mumbled, barely audible.

Kaidan hooked his chin over Shepard’s shoulder, but when he tried to catch his eye, he found Ben was fast asleep.

“Mm. I’m glad,” he whispered.

He laid there for a moment longer, the weight of his body pressing Shepard’s warm and relaxed muscles into the soft mattress. When he rose up slowly and tugged the sheet out from beneath Ben to cover him, Shepard barely stirred. Kaidan sat on the edge of the bed, softly tracing the pattern of bruises on Shepard’s back from memory through the sheet, his finger knowing the outline of each one. Laying a kiss on Shepard’s brow, he stood and made for the door, but slowly: quietly enough to ensure his departure could not wake Shepard up, but slow enough as if to hope he would.

As the holo-ring on the hatch turned from red to green and the hatch slid open, Kaidan shook his head and laughed.

“Unique solutions, huh?” he said to himself in the elevator, and the lights in Shepard’s cabin dimmed as the doors closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:  
> After the mission to TGES Mineral Works with Kaidan and James, searching for Dr. Garneau.
> 
> Invite James Up to Cabin  
> Leviathan DLC: Caleston Rift, Mahavid, TGES Mineral Works mission


	12. The Difference between the People and the Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard is reminded of his own lost time after helping some researchers enthralled by Leviathan. Kaidan talks about the sea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is sex in this chapter, so avoid it if that's a thing you avoid.

Shepard leapt up into the shuttle and turned to offer his hand to James, then to Kaidan bringing up the rear. He stood at the open door a moment longer, surveying the ruin of TGES Mineral Works—ten years of the most perfunctory maintenance had left the facility in disrepair and virtually uninhabitable. After the intensive Reaper attack, there were black marks peppered along the walls, corpses of the Reaper forces still dissolving away into gray puddles along the outer walk-ways.

He slid the shuttle door closed with a slam, and there was only the lightest jerk as the shuttle’s inertial dampeners activated. Kaidan had already collapsed into a seat, actually taking up three with his back against the bulkhead and his legs stretched out in front of him. James stood arms akimbo against the storage compartment.

“When I asked to go on more missions, I wasn’t expecting to need to know current events. Kinda wish I woulda paid more attention over the last ten years, heh?” he said after a long silence.

An Alliance cruiser had been close by on a supply run, and had agreed to pick up the TGES Mineral Works employees, but that had left the fire team alone with a few dozen dazed workers for almost three hours. Most were surprisingly credulous to discover that they had been living a waking dream for the last decade, and there were a lot of questions about the artifact, about Leviathan, about what had happened in the galaxy meanwhile. But once they had discovered that the galaxy was at war…

“A lot of them aren’t gonna be able to contact their families,” Kaidan said softly, eyes closed. “A lot of their families are gone.”

“Yeah…” James replied. “At first I was glad I’d been ignoring which colony worlds were gone, but now… I mean.”

Kaidan knew almost every colony name by heart, as near to a full record of the devastation the Reapers had wrought as anyone could expect. When the workers had asked James if their families were still alive and he shrugged his shoulders, they went to Kaidan. After a while, there had been a cloud of desperate people crowding the major. Most left in tears.

“Good to see the turians in high spirits,” Kaidan mumbled, “and the asari.”

“None of them remembered anything about Leviathan at all…” Shepard’s tone was a soft growl. He had spent his hours once the fighting was over asking questions of his own, trying to catch the people before they could get to where Kaidan stood like a revival preacher, spreading the fire and brimstone these people had awakened too.

“I was talkin’ to this one guy? He’s really tight with his parents, got a little girl they’d been watching for him when he signed on?” James swallowed, “He checked his message logs, guess he’d stayed in contact with them the whole time Leviathan was in his head.”

“He came and talked to me later,” Kaidan said. “The messages stopped about 3 years ago. His replies had gotten shorter and shorter until his family stopped writing.”

“So Leviathan was in his head enough to keep up his regular routine and he doesn’t remember _anything_?” Shepard fumed. James cast the major a wary look and Kaidan opened his eyes slowly.

“Nothing about Leviathan. Nothing about his daughter for the last 10 years.” Kaidan’s voice was quiet, and Shepard breathed a heavy sigh, sat down against the far wall.

“You, uh…” James said after a minute, “You looked good down there, commander. Took care of those banshees… yeah.”

“Looking good yourself, Vega.” Shepard nodded slowly, trying to give Vega a smile. “Only reason I could take care of those banshees at all was because I knew you were covering my six.”

James grinned, nodded.

“Well, I’m gonna keep Esteban company, let the major take his nap.” He nodded to where Kaidan was dozing against the bulkhead again. The shuttle rocked as they passed through the asteroid’s radiation shield. When Vega had seated himself in the front compartment, Kaidan opened his eyes slowly, moved his legs and beckoned Shepard to sit next to him.

“How’re you holdin’ up?” he asked softly when Shepard trudged over and sat down.

“I’m fine,” Shepard said, tone level. “Go ahead and sleep, I know how much you love your power nap. Gonna take a bit to rendezvous with the Normandy, escorting that Alliance cruiser.”

“Hell of a thing we saw down there,” Kaidan said pensively. “Not sure if I can sleep with that on my mind, y’know?”

“I’ve seen you sleep through worse.”

“Hmm.” Kaidan looked up to find Steve and James talking and laughing in the cockpit, and he threaded his fingers through Shepard’s. “It’s real, huh? Leviathan?”

“Yeah. It is.”

“And it’s powerful.”

“Yeah.”

“Those people… didn’t even remember finding the artifact. It just… slowly took them over.”

“I spoke with Hackett. The cruiser they’re boarding has a marine detachment. They’ll be under armed guard until they get to the Crucible. He’s got a team of psychologists waiting to test them.”

“So you think it’s like indoctrination too, huh?”

“…seems like it,” Shepard sighed. “Though not as violent… maybe not as permanent.”

“Reminds me of the Thorian.”

“Yeah. But it reminds me of the Reapers more.”

“Oh?”

“Taking control of people against their will… making them slaves…”

“…well the Reapers do that too… but then they sorta… you know. Kill everybody.”

“So?”

“So maybe they’re different.” Kaidan shrugged.

“Maybe they’re not.” Shepard frowned.

Kaidan squeezed his hand, “C’mon. What’s goin’ on? Tell me what you’re thinking?”

“I’m not thinking anything except…” Shepard shook his head, mouth curled into a hint of a sneer. “We need to follow this lead. Need to get right back to the Citadel and… go through Bryson’s research again. I must’ve missed something the first time…”

“This… isn’t your fault, Shepard. This is all… like nothing we’ve ever seen before—“

“Ten years,” Shepard huffed. “We could’ve known about this ten years ago. We could’ve had time to find this Leviathan. It knows about the Reapers. It killed one. We could’ve been preparing for _ten years_.”

“Shepard…” Kaidan shook his head.

“All those colonies you listed off today. All those people could still be alive if we would’ve… if we…” He turned away, disgusted by his own thoughts

“Shepard. Hey?” Kaidan squeezed his hand again, “Space is… it’s big. Heh. It’s… the biggest thing… Hell, where was I going with this?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “There’s stuff out here we can’t imagine. That’s really scary sometimes, but it’s also… really wonderful, you know?”

“War,” Shepard droned. “And Leviathan knows about it. I’d trade all the ‘wonder’ in the universe to bring those people we’ve lost back.”

“…but you can’t.” Kaidan’s voice was a rusty whisper.

“And _that_ is one thing I never need reminding of.”

“…there’s still people to save. Still new discoveries… Still hope. If learning about this ‘Leviathan’ teaches us one thing, it’s that, right? Hell, how many times have the Reapers destroyed everything? And still… just look at the universe we live in?”

“…uh huh,” Shepard sighed, let his head thump against the bulkhead.

Kaidan sat in pensive silence for a moment.

“When I was a kid my dad used to take me up north along the coast. We have some property up there. Living in a little house, swimming in the Pacific.” He looked up and smiled, “Not Vega’s Pacific but… BC Pacific. Cold most of the year. I used to hate it. Not because it was cold but… it’s just a lot of water? Y’know?”

“Heh,” Shepard’s mouth wore the ghost of a smile. “I remember thinking that about the Mediterranean. Sure.”

“Did it ever scare you?”

“Scare me?” The dour expression was slowly melting away, and Shepard’s shoulders slumped. “No. Getting away from the inner-city. Those were my favorite days.”

“Heh, well it used to scare me. Water everywhere. Couldn’t see anything. Didn’t know what was down there, or how different it was.” Kaidan heaved a sigh, “My dad asked me about it one time. I told him that I was afraid of the sea, just what I told you now. And he said ‘ _Well, son, all that’s true about space,’_ ” Kaidan’s impression of his father was his own voice, but spoken with reverence. Slower. “ _And you’ve wanted to go into space since you were this high. So what’s the difference?_ ’”

“…and?” Shepard asked at last, he had tilted his head to the side, watching Kaidan’s face.

“I don’t know. He was right. I had always dreamed of going to space. Maybe for all the wrong reasons, but still. Maybe… what I wanted more than going into space was getting away from Earth. From the people who thought I was a freak. And I wanted adventure, to make my life mean something. Felt like the problems would be different out there. Manageable. Guess a twelve year old doesn’t really think about all that every time he goes swimming!” Kaidan snickered. “But it made me realize… I had a point here… it made me realize that space could be scary, but it should always be beautiful, too.”

“…Thank you.” Shepard’s lips were drawn into a thin line and Kaidan shrugged. After a long moment, Kaidan let his head lean against Shepard’s shoulder. Ben pressed his face into Kaidan hair, warm breath across his brow. “I always loved the sea. The water. Calms me down. Always wondered what was down there. Sometimes I’d spend the day just floating. Or diving as deep as I could go. Over and over.”

Kaidan smiled against the armor plates on Shepard’s shoulder. The two sat in silence for a long time.

“How about we get some protein pouches and you can tell me more?” Kaidan said softly.

“No,” Shepard replied immediately, body stiffening again. “I should get to work trying to figure out what our next step is with Leviathan… sorry.”

“Alright.”

“…I really am sorry…”

“Shh. It’s fine.” Kaidan sat up when the shuttle slowed to begin docking procedures. “I’ll be in the lounge, just… swing by before you head up for the night, okay?”

++

He did, and Kaidan tried to cheer him up, standing against the infinite field of stars like he was stitched into the pattern of the heavens himself.

Shepard couldn’t stay long, mentioned how eager he was to get to work solving the Leviathan problem.

“Ten years is a lot of lost time,” Kaidan said as he walked away. “Let’s make sure we never let time slip by us, okay?”

++

Not long after, Kaidan had pushed him up against aquarium, his lips pressed to Shepards. Each round of kisses from the elevator to this very spot—Shepard writhing against the glass as if floating in the warm calm of the Mediterranean—had been shorter and shorter, neither man patient enough to wait to catch his breath. And Kaidan pulled Shepard in hard and pushed him against the aquarium harder, and his breath fogged the glass and tickled the hairs on the back of Ben’s neck as the two gulped in air, breaths coming out of rhythm.

“Kaidan Alenko,” Shepard panted. “Sometimes when you open your mouth… and tell me not to let time… slip by us… with that sexy voice of yours… puppy dog eyes…”

Shepard’s hands trailed down Kaidan’s body, gyrating against his own, as if daring Shepard to actually try to get a firm grip on his ass. It also pinned Shepard down, bolt hard against Kaidan’s own cock, but unable to relieve the pressure. Kaidan transformed Shepard’s growl into a moan with a sucking bite against the base of his neck. Shepard had been stripped of his shirt, shuddered at the roughness of Kaidan’s uniform brushing against his nipple.

“Your pants,” Kaidan gasped before plunging his tongue back between Shepard’s lips. Ben sucked at it with relish, and instead tugged at Kaidan’s shirt till it fell to the floor, practically forcing him out of his undershirt.

Getting his lover’s arms up, Shepard reached down and hoisted Kaidan up into the air. He kissed a line down his chest, lapping at a nipple with the tip of his tongue until boots dug into his back and Kaidan pulled at his hair to beg for more assertive stimulation. He grunted when he couldn’t raise Kaidan high enough to nibble at his waistband.

Shepard’s body sparked blue, biotic flame rising from every pore, and lifted Kaidan’s body to where he wanted it. The moment his tongue swirled around and sank into his navel, Kaidan’s own biotics flashed in response. The energy crackled between Shepard’s lips as they dragged back up Kaidan’s heaving stomach, and Kaidan’s head lolled back with the sensation.

He gave a cry when Shepard took a nipple between his teeth, pushed back and slid laughing to the floor, his blue glow evaporating.

“Was.. was… sorry..” Shepard stuttered, breathless, biotics fading as he smoothed a hand over Kaidan’s face to check his expression.

“No, that’s fine Shepard…” Kaidan sucked on Shepard’s pouting lip, “That… definitely wasn’t pain…”

“…I want you.”

“Show me.” Kaidan gave him a feral smile, “I noticed a little bottle of something in the drawer the other night…”

Shepard smiled, and his ears flushed, he arched his naked torso against Kaidan’s, nipping at his lips.

“…are you going to fuck me tonight?” Shepard’s voice was a deep and needy rasp.

“Do you want that?” Kaidan stroked his thumb along Shepard’s chin before Ben lolled his tongue around it, sucking it into his mouth. Instead of replying, he unbuckled his pants, pushed them down, and grabbed both Kaidan’s hands placing them on his ass. He threw his hands around Kaidan’s shoulders and moaned into his mouth when a thumb teased with agonizing slowness over his entrance.

Kaidan seemed to shiver as much as he did, his length pressing hard into Ben’s hip.

They fell back onto the bed, Shepard alternating between taking Kaidan’s cock into his mouth and pulling at his boots. By the time he was naked, Kaidan was writhing against the bed.

“I’m gonna… no wait… stop… I really…” Kaidan lifted himself up and raised Shepard’s face to his with trembling hands. Shepard whimpered when Kaidan took him in hand mid-kiss. “Can I…?”

“Yeah… Yeah.” Shepard grinned and stood to reach for the bedside table, but Kaidan stopped him.

“Lemme.” He pulled Shepard back onto his lap and kissed him over his shoulder, Shepard grinding down against his slick cock.

Shepard crawled backwards onto the bed and watched with relish, slowly stroking himself as Kaidan applied a thick coating of lube. He looked at Shepard with a furrowed brow.

“How do you... how should I…?” he stuttered.

Shepard shook his head, bucked his hips to show how eager he was. “However you want. I can take it.”

“I’ve never…” his smile was sheepish. Shepard shrugged.

“And?”

“…tell me… what you like, okay?”

“I like it all.” He scooched up the bed and threw his legs around Kaidan’s hips when he bent to kiss Ben’s lips.

“Should I…?” Kaidan’s slick fingers circled around Shepard’s opening, and he practically crowed in delight.

“Yeah… oh yeah. You can open me up with your fingers,” he quirked an eyebrow, “or not.”

“Has it been a while for you?” The pad of his middle finger pushed against the ring of muscle, and Ben stretched till he could slip inside. Shepard bit his lip against another moan when the finger curled up and brushed against his prostate.

“Yeah. It has. Wanted to—“ Shepard gasped again.

“Then I guess I should use my fingers so it doesn’t hurt, huh?” Kaidan was trembling, but he was still stiff, other hand still playing across Shepard’s chest with reverent slowness.

“I don’t care if it hurts,” Shepard whimpered, pulsing around Kaidan’s finger, pulling him deep.

“…hell.”

Kaidan pushed his fingers into Shepard, his own hardness surging every time he coaxed a grunt or a whimper out of Ben’s mouth, and finally Shepard rolled onto all fours, arched his back up against Kaidan’s chest to sink further onto the finger still inside him.

“This way will give you more leverage, since it’s your first time.” He gave Kaidan a needy, passionate kiss, then leaned forward again.

Kaidan removed his fingers and entered him with torturous slowness, and several times Shepard grunted, but stayed still. Kaidan’s hot, slick fingers pulled at his hips until they were flush together. The rhythm of Kaidan’s hips built slowly from there, his hands exploring each quivering muscle in Shepard’s thighs as he sank deeper with each thrust.

“You can… _unf,_ ” Shepard pushed back, “you can go as fast as you want. I can take it.”

“You’re beautiful, Shepard…” Kaidan kissed between his shoulder blades, pulling out till Ben’s entrance was taut against him, then hunching down to drive steadily into his prostate. Shepard’s eyes squeezed shut at the sensation.

“You can be as rough as you want, really.” Shepard’s body tensed, trying to resist the pleasure Kaidan was working across his body, pushing deep inside him.

Kaidan’s hands reached beneath him, palms trailing over his hot chest, over his quivering stomach, tickling up his ribs till Ben could barely keep himself supported on his elbows. He fell to the mattress, face pressed into the sheets and writhing against Kaidan’s every new touch.

Kaidan’s thrusts raced his heartbeat, the tease and press of his hands playing counterpoint across the slick planes of Shepard’s body.

“You can… You…” Ben murmured breathlessly against the sheets, finally giving up to the pleasure with a curse lost in the bed. When Kaidan trailed a finger across the head of Shepard’s cock before taking him in hand. Shepard’s eyes opened wide. “Wait! You first… you…”

He arched off the bed and against Kaidan’s chest, pulling Kaidan at such an angle that he tightened his grip around Shepard, matching pace with his own thrusts.

“You… you can… I can take it… you should…” And Ben went stiff in his arms, crying out and losing himself in orgasm. Every time Kaidan brushed a thumb across nipple, Ben’s body twitched again, till he became limp leaning back and receiving Kaidan’s thrusts.

But he was still only for a second, rallying despite heaving breaths to force himself back on Kaidan, tightening around him with every thrust. Seconds later, Kaidan whined, sucked on Ben’s neck and shuddered, spilling over the edge. His legs were shaky beneath him, and he eased them both onto the bed, while he struggled to regain his breath.

Shepard bolted up, stumbling into the bulkhead when he reached for his briefs to clean himself, panting as he staggered over to the couch. First he fell to his knees, then collapsed onto the couch and squeezed his eyes shut. He fought to regain his breath, turning his body to face the backrest and gripping the cushion tightly in his fist.

They lay like that a moment, Kaidan on his back on the bed, Shepard curled into himself on the sofa, both breathing heavily, shivering as the sweat cooled from their bodies. It took Kaidan a minute to realize Shepard had not simply headed for the bathroom.

“Shepard?” His voice was hoarse. He eased off the bed, hand hovering over the undershirts on the floor till he lifted one to his face, breathed in the scent, and discarded it to pick up the other. He wiped his body down and padded over to the couch, tilting dizzily. He kneeled on the floor and softly touched Shepard’s shoulder. Ben was still breathing heavily, his back to Kaidan. “Hey… Ben?”

“Yeah…” Shepard wheezed, letting Kaidan stroke down his side as he buried his face further in the sofa cushion.

“I’m… I’m sorry… are you okay?” He leaned forward to kiss Shepard’s shoulder, but thought better of it. His hand would not stray down to Shepard’s hip.

“What?” Shepard tried to laugh, “Fine. I’m… fine… just…”

“I’m sorry, I just…” Kaidan sighed. “I wanted to make it good for you?”

“Good? Kaidan.” Shepard’s hands released around the top of the cushion. “That was… incredible… just…” He turned, and Kaidan’s fingers hesitated to touch his chest. “I uh... I’m just not really used to someone… Suppose I was expecting you to be… rougher… or as eager to get off as… I’m used to someone really… taking what they need, and then I…”

“…yeah?” Kaidan leaned into the touch when Shepard cupped his cheek.

“I’m just a little overwhelmed… I’m used to making someone feel… good. Then I take what I need… and… I wanted that for you, but then…” He huffed, rolled his eyes. He spoke softly, barely a whisper, and Kaidan had to lean in to hear. “The way you touched me, the way you felt inside me… like you were trying to… _give_ … me… something… I guess I wasn’t expecting that.”

“But… not bad?”

“No. No…” Shepard smiled, eyes soft. Kaidan leaned forward and kissed him slowly. They were deep, meaningful kisses while Ben held the back of his head as if afraid to let him go. “Perfect. You’re perfect, Kaidan.”

Kaidan grinned, buried his face in Shepard’s chest and hugged him close.

“C’mon,” he kissed Ben’s chin, “Let’s go to bed, huh? We’ve had a long day.”

He helped Shepard to his feet and they kissed above the coffee table, the fierce passion in their embrace a half hour ago shivered away into a deep, binding tenderness.

“How did it stack up? Being with a man?” Shepard grinned, nuzzling into the feel of Kaidan’s eyelashes brushing his cheek.

“With _you_ ,” Kaidan corrected. “And it was unbelievable.”

They stripped the top sheet off the bed and folded the quilt at the foot of the mattress for later, tangling in each other’s arms and legs.

“You going to stay with me, tonight?” Shepard said, letting his head sink to Kaidan’s chest so his lover could kiss his hair.

“Yeah, Shepard. After today, feels good to be together… not under the control of some… Leviathan,” Kaidan mumbled. “Those people… I can’t even imagine.”

Shepard stiffened slightly at the mention, and Kaidan held him tighter.

“Damn. Killed the mood. I’m sorry, Ben.”

 “No. It’s okay,” he sighed. “If I’m being honest, I was thinking about it too. That was an incredible fuck. Felt wrong to bring it up.”

“Heh.”

“It was nice, what you tried in the shuttle,” Shepard said after a moment.

“Hmm?”

“The people… I got so hung up on finding Leviathan. Completing the mission. Stopping the Reapers.” He nodded. “You saw the _people_. You gave out a lot of bad news today and… I didn’t even think to ask how you were doing. I still need to figure out how to see the _people._ ”

“Everybody’s gonna be better off with the Reapers gone,” Kaidan said sleepily, shifting in Shepard’s arms till Ben was flat on his back with Kaidan’s head on his chest.

“Yeah. There’s got to be both, though.” Shepard threw his arms around Kaidan. “That’s what I told myself on Earth when I was thinking about everything you said to me…”

“Hm?” Kaidan dozed listening to his heartbeat, and Shepard tipped his chin up.

“Hey? Wake up a second?” he said, and Kaidan opened his eyes to Ben’s loving stare. “That’s what I told myself when I thought about you in Vancouver. When I thought about everything you were to me. I didn’t know how much you meant to me then, but even then… you were my anchor.”

Kaidan smiled and leaned up to kiss him tenderly, “We missed a lot of time… and that’s my fault…”

“Shh,” Shepard quieted him with another kiss. “You’re my anchor. You’ve always been my anchor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:  
> After a visit to the Citadel, Kaidan discusses his childhood.
> 
> Deliver various Citadel Errands  
> Meet with Miranda on Citadel  
> Meet with Tali in Commons  
> Meet with Liara in Commons  
> 


	13. The Difference between Forgiving Each Other and Forgiving Yourself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard's research into finding Leviathan hits another snag as the Normandy is called back to Eden Prime. Kaidan reflects on his childhood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter diverges from the Mass Effect Foundation books in regards to Kaidan's backstory. This is because the tone for Rahna's broken arm in the comics seemed totally different than the way Kaidan describes it in Mass Effect. I hope you will not be offended.

“Tali, hey there!” Kaidan tucked his data-pad under his arm to wave.

“Oh, hi Kaidan!” The program playing on Tali’s omni-tool flicked off and she gave a little wave.

“What’re you doin’ up in the embassy offices?”

“I was asked by the Admiralty Board to formally submit the quarian fleet’s official pledge of support to the Earth embassy.” She fiddled with the edge of her veil, “Guess I’m the closest thing the quarian government has to an ambassador. I’ve been waiting to see someone for over two hours.”

“I guess things are a little up in the air around here these days since the coup.”

“I’m trying to tell myself that,” she crossed her arms and leaned her weight on one hip, “otherwise I’d think it was just prejudice.”

“Yeah, I hope not.”

“Do you mind if we sit? My feet are killing me.” Kaidan gestured to one of the seats near the windows looking out onto the Presidium. “A lot of people have been a little more open-minded about my people since we resettled the home world, but a lot are even more awful than ever. I don’t know what I was expecting. I guess I didn’t think they’d re-open the quarian embassy on the Presidium. till…” Her voice was thick with irony, but her shoulder slumped when she leaned one arm up on the back of the sofa.

“I can’t believe people sometimes. One of those things where… you’d hope that with the universe going to hell, people would let up on some of their old baggage,” Kaidan nodded sympathetically.

“I thought about marching back up to that little _bosh’tet_ behind the counter and demanding to see someone as an ‘admiral of the quarian fleet.’” Tali sat up straight and gesticulated comically along with her title, but then shook her head as if waving the impression away. “But I’ve been here long enough to know that nobody knows what is going on.”

“Lotta scared people, that’s for sure.”

“It’s funny, when I was a little girl, dreaming about my pilgrimage, I used to imagine coming to the Citadel. My father told me that quarians weren’t very welcome in the galaxy, but I was too young to listen.” She shifted sideways in the seat, resting her chin on her shoulder as she stared down from their great height onto the Presidium. “I thought: ‘I will be so clever and so beautiful no one will be able to hate me. I’ll go wherever I like.’ Isn’t that silly?”

“Heh,” Kaidan smiled warmly, “No, that’s… not silly at all, Tali.”

“Of course, I wasn’t beautiful: I was wearing an enviro-suit. And clever didn’t matter so much,” she chuckled. “But an hour ago, a hanar diplomat asked me if the quarian engineering corps would consider and exchange of knowledge—tech optimizing of filtration systems for immunological research—‘within the next seven months.’ It’s the closest my people have been to _belonging_ in this galaxy in centuries.”

“That’s really great, Tali.”

“And it’s because of us. The Normandy. Because of Shepard.” She turned back to Kaidan, “But then I think about the Reapers… or about that Leviathan we’ve been chasing. It’s so easy to lose everything.”

“The only way we win this war is together.” Kaidan tapped his data-pad idly on his knee, “If we’re all in it, we can beat them.”

“I hope so. The flotilla is the largest fleet in the galaxy. But it feels so small compared to something as old as Leviathan—if it’s as old as everyone says. Or against the Reapers. Like stepping off that shuttle onto the Citadel for the first time.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Kaidan turned and followed her gaze out the window once more, and they sat for a moment like that while the queues slowly moved up to and away from the embassy counter behind them.

“I’ve done a lot for my people,” Tali said, nodding once sharply. “And it hurts to be away. But it’s made me realize that it’s important for me to be with the people I care about on the Normandy.”

“I know _exactly_ how you feel,” Kaidan sighed. Tali shook her head again.

“Anyway, if you’re looking for Shepard, I saw him down in the commons a few hours ago.”

“Oh,” Kaidan stared idly out the window at the band of blue sky, “I’m uh… heh. I’m not looking for Shepard.”

“Really?” Tali’s voice had a wry lilt that made Kaidan turn his head.

“Um, yeah. I mean no.” He blinked hard.

“Huh,” she said, unconvinced. “Anyway he was trying to make time for a couple people before going back to Dr. Bryson’s lab. So if you wanted to, say… meet him for lunch or… you know. Something. You could always give him a call.” She was leaning in now, “I’m sure he’d make some time for you.”

“I’m, uh. I’m sure I’ll see him back on the Normandy,” Kaidan answered, then added quickly, “—because it’s a small ship. Y’know.” Tali huffed out a small laugh.

“Fine! Be that way.” She crossed on leg over the other and gingerly picked up the data-pad Kaidan had left on the seat and began scrolling through. “So what brings you up to the embassies, then?”

“I’m a Spectre, I don’t need a reason to visit the Spectre offices.” He plucked the data-pad back out of Tali’s hands and set it behind him with a smirk, “I was actually just purchasing a new weapon, if you wanna be nosy.”

“Could’ve had Cortez get it for you?” Her leg bounced a bit on her knee.

“I, uh, wanted to take care of it myself.”

“New field weapon for you?”

“Yeah,” Kaidan shrugged.

“But that,” she pointed to the data-pad, “shows you bought a _shotgun._ You don’t use a shotgun, do you, Kaidan?” she asked, voice thick with mock inquisitiveness. Kaidan rolled his eyes.

“Alright! I was buying it as a gift, alright?”

“Well I don’t think we’re good enough friends for you to buy _me_ a  _Wraith_! I've only ever seen one on the black market. I _wonder_ who it could be for?” Tali said, chortling. “But it’s good to see you have better taste in shotguns than you do in omni-tools.”

Kaidan opened his mouth to retort when suddenly his omni-tool bleeped loudly. He skimmed over the message.

“What is it?” Tali asked, leaning in.

“We’re being called back to the Normandy. There’s been some kind of find on Eden Prime, some sort of archaeological dig site.” Kaidan’s jaw was tight.

“Right away?”

“Right away. It’ll take a while to get there.” Kaidan sighed, “Shepard’s not gonna get time to look through Bryson’s lab after all. I’m sure we’ll be back here right after the mission; He’ll understand if you need to stay and finish up business here? With the embassy? The hanar?”

“No,” she stood as Kaidan did and they moved together toward the elevator. “If the Normandy’s headed out, I’m coming. The fleet will be ready when Shepard needs it, whether or not I make a ‘formal pledge.’ And I need to stand with my friends.”

++

The trip to Eden Prime wasn’t going to take long, but the crew had all sunk four good hours into their shore leave before being recalled. More than a few members of the crew were at least a touch inebriated, and the duty rosters had to be swapped around to let people sleep.  As such, the ship was strangely still: quiet the way it was during the red-eye shift despite it being the middle of the day-shift.

Shepard stepped lightly up the gangway past the sleeping pods and into the forward battery compartment, but Garrus was nowhere to be seen. He turned to leave when there was a clanking further forward.

“Garrus?”

“Huh?” came Kaidan’s voice, muffled, “Shepard?”

Shepard walked up the length of the generator to find Kaidan’s legs sticking out from underneath, a dozen or more tools scattered around on the deck. There was a soft, even voice emanating from the data-pad on the deck by his feet: an audio novel. The faint glow of an omni-tool flicked off and Kaidan scrabbled back out. Shepard grabbed his forearm to help pull him out till was sitting against the bulkhead. His uniform shirt was unbuckled and open at the collar, revealing the shine of sweat on his chest. The major held up a finger as he swigged at a water bottle nearby, brushing a hand against his wet brow and spreading a grease smudge over his eyebrow.

“Hey,” Shepard squatted down and kissed Kaidan on his lips the moment he had finished his drink. Kaidan smiled and pulled away, looking toward the door. Shepard quirked an eyebrow, “It’s the _forward battery_ , Kaidan. Only person likely to walk in is Garrus, and it’s not like he’d care.”

“Well,” Kaidan rolled his eyes and reached to touch Ben’s face before noticing the grease on his hand and refraining. “Maybe I just don’t want to get you dirty, hmm?”

“You’ve got a thing or two to learn about me still,” Ben actually winked as he backed into the bulkhead and sat down across from Kaidan on the deck. Kaidan pulled the data-pad over to him to pause the audio playback, swiping hi finger over a passage to bookmark the location. He snickered when he saw the passage he’d selected, and clicked the playback button:

_“If a boy can't have a good teacher, give him a psychological cripple or an exotic failure to cope with; don't just him a bad, dull teacher.”_

“Whaddaya think, Shepard?” Kaidan chuckled. “You think that’s true?”

“I can think of an instructor or two at the Academy that fit that description.” He tapped Kaidan’s foot with his own. “Makes me think more about you and Vrynnus, though.” Kaidan laughed and took a long guzzle of his water bottle, letting the pad clatter back onto the deck.

“So what’s up?” Kaidan asked finally, trying to brush the damp locks off his forehead. His hair was soaked with sweat and there were dark patches under his arms.

“Looking for Garrus. I was supposed to meet him on the Citadel this afternoon. Got cut short after the Eden Prime signal. Wanted to apologize and make sure I rescheduled.”

“Ah, well, you just missed him…” Kaidan switched on his omni-tool and frowned at the time, “Actually, I guess he went to bed about an hour ago. God, I’m losing it under here.”

“What’re you doing?”

“EDI and Legion had made a bet with Garrus a week ago about adjusting the targeting reticulum of the canon by another 1.7%,” he chuckled and took another swig of his water. “Garrus thinks he can do it, but he needs to improve the inertial dampening systems on the generator rig… is this boring?”

Shepard was chuckling, “No. No, tell me more, please.”

“Anyway, Garrus doesn’t know the first thing about that kind of circuitry, so he asked for my help. I think he would’ve asked Tali, but he’s afraid of looking stupid.”

“So, did you get it?”

“1.5% as of twenty minutes ago,” Kaidan frowned, stretched his back.

“You alright?”

“Just been lying on this deck for a couple hours, got pins and needles—“ Shepard reached out and pulled Kaidan in till he lay back against Shepard’s chest, “Shepard, I seriously am sweaty as hell and covered in generator lubricant.”

“I’ve got clean uniforms,” Ben kissed him behind the ear and Kaidan finally sighed and relaxed in his arms, shifting to pull a spanner out from under his leg. “More comfortable?”

“Much,” Kaidan smirked and squeezed Shepard’s knee.

“Do you need to finish it tonight? Or can it wait?”

“Eh, I wasn’t gonna be able to sleep with us rushing to Eden Prime anyway…” he cleared his throat. “So… did you get a chance to stop by Bryson’s laboratory?”

“No.” Shepard’s head thunked against the bulkhead, and Kaidan craned back against his shoulder to catch a glimpse. “I should’ve but… after our talk the other night… it felt like it was important to meet with some of the crew that’s been trying to meet with me. Cortez really needed a friend. Liara and I haven’t properly caught up with everything going on. Everyone on board has stood by me through so much, and I don’t really know how to give back to them.”

“Yeah, stuck by you through _everything,”_ Kaidan’s voice seemed a little wistful, and a little guilty. “I bet that means a lot to them, just getting to spend some time.” A bead of sweat trickled down his brow and into his eyes and he growled, “Ack! Sorry, Shepard. I’m gross.”

Shepard just chuckled, ran his fingers through Kaidan’s hair, mussing it just a little bit. “It’s okay. I think it’s sexy when your hair’s all messed up. Of course, I like it better when I’m the reason it’s so messed up.” Shepard laughed, “Liara was telling me today about when she was a girl she used to dig for ancient cities in her yard. Got me thinking what you were like as a little kid.”

Kaidan smiled, squirmed a bit in Shepard’s arms, “…oh yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s funny to think of you as a little boy: pressed shirt and jeans, hair gelled and perfectly styled…” He kissed Kaidan’s ear again when Kaidan leaned back against his shoulder to snicker.

“Hardly! I was a messy kid. My hair was always spiky and wiry. Full of dirt and sticks.”

“And I thought your stint as a professional deal-maker on Omega was the most shocking thing I would learn about you! What made you start styling these beautiful locks, Alenko?” He nuzzled into the streaks of gray at Kaidan’s temple.

“Same time I got my implant.” Kaidan stated matter-o-factly, eyes closed and breathing steadily with his head on Shepard’s shoulder. “The L2s build up more static than the L3s. The L3 is programmed to safely disperse the charge, but the L2 just lets it build up.”

“ _That’s_ why your hair stands up?”

“Pretty much,” Kaidan impassively rubbed at the side of his nose, “I gel it together so it’s not straight up, but the static charge is most of it.”

“…you’re messing with me.”

“You’ll never know,” Kaidan turned and smiled seductively.

It was true that already Kaidan’s hair was looking more like its coifed usual than it had when he had first crawled out from under the generator.

“I’ve never heard of that happening before.” Ben quirked an eybrow.

“Well, considering the other side-effects of the L2 are insanity and brain tumors… poofy hair and a little static ringing at the back of your head isn’t much to worry about.”

“Static ring?”

“Yeah, it’s kinda this sizzle in the back of my head.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Sure. There’s this tingling pain that runs down my jaw, and it feels like there’s static in my head all the time.”

“…you’re _messing_ with me!”

“Oh no,” Kaidan chuckled, “the pain is very real.”

Shepard’s fingers delicately traced the line of Kaidan’s jaw as if he’d be able to feel the pain with his hands, but Kaidan just smiled softly and nuzzled into his touch, “And this is all the time?”

“Yep, since I got my implant as a kid. Sure.”

“Kaidan…” Shepard’s arms squeezed Kaidan tighter and he brushed a bead of sweat out of Kaidan’s eyebrows with his thumb, “Is this what causes the migraines?”

“Oh no. Separate issues. Same cause.”

“I can’t believe you never told me this! What other chronic pains are you hiding from me?” Ben’s other hand was fiddling with the collar of Kaidan’s open uniform shirt, hardcoding new data about the man.

“I think that’s the full list, Shepard. Speaking of chronic pain, how’s your hip? Your back?” Kaidan asked. Shepard’s leg shifted experimentally below him.

“Great actually, I haven’t actually thought about it since that massage. I think that’s the first painless 24 hours I’ve spent since waking up from the dead.”

“Sounds like we need to make a massage a regular occurrence” Kaidan half-yawned, half-sighed.

“I’d rather find a way to help out with that static ringing. That massage fixed me right up.”

“Well, great. But honestly, a day of walking around the Presidium instead of fighting geth probably helped about as much as that massage did. And don’t worry about the static thing. Learned to live with that a long time ago.”

“I’m sorry your biotics has always been such a burden for you, Kaidan,” Shepard said softly. “For the most part, mine have always been an advantage for me.”

“Well, the stigma of being a freak biotic I’ve had ever since the powers manifested at 12, but the pain? I had three years as a kid without an implant of any kind: no pain. So there’s plenty to be thankful for. Course, moving anything without an implant was pretty hard, but still.”

“I can barely remember what it’s like trying to control my biotics without my implant. Sore muscles, broken fingers…”

“I hear you. When I exhibited I could move things around pretty easy, probably just because my emotions were so high. But once I was 14 or 15 it was a lot harder. Getting the implant? Suddenly being able to move things again? Thought it was worth the headaches,” he chuckled.

“So,” he squeezed Kaidan tighter and took his earlobe playfully between his lips, “what was little Kaidan Alenko like?” Kaidan laughed, and took another swig of his water.

“Angry. I thought the other kids in my grade were stupid. Probably because none of them ever wanted to play outside. Everyone thought I was a little bit creepy. I was, I guess. I’d go off to play by myself, had some friends that liked me, of course; every kid does. But I wasn’t what you’d call a joiner. Fought with my teachers plenty—I thought the reading exercises we had to do were stupid because I could already read and write pretty well.” Kaidan laughed, “My parents got quite an earful about me every time they had parent-teacher conferences. My dad would pull me aside at home and ask me why I wasn’t trying to fit in more.”

“Kaidan Alenko, precocious scamp?” Shepard laughed.

“Precocious? I suppose you could call it that. When I was… I dunno, 7 or 8 my folks got a call from Conatix saying that I needed to have monthly doctor check-ups—all on their dime. Since my mom was exposed to eezo when she was pregnant with me, they said I may begin exhibiting symptoms of some kind of eezo poisoning. They were just looking for potential biotics, but they weren’t admitting that at the time.

“From then on every fight I got into at school, every food I did or didn’t like, anything I was good at, anything I wasn’t good at: it was all because of eezo exposure after that.” Kaidan chuckled, “The teachers started treating me differently, sometimes letting me get away with things they used to crack down on me for, and the rest of the time acting really weary whenever they had to scold me. You notice things like that as a kid, and the other kids noticed to.”

“I’m guessing that didn’t help shake you out of your loner status?”

“You got that right. I was the eezo kid. Nobody knew what that meant, but eventually kids like me…” Kaidan smiled and turned a little in Shepard’s arms until he could give him a long, lingering kiss on the lips, leaving a smudge of grease on Ben’s chin. “Kids like _us…_ started developing brain tumors and psychosis. Soon it was all over the news and instead of being the unruly kid in school, I was some kind of liability.

“Of course, I didn’t think the way I was being treated was fair at all and made sure to voice this as loud and as often as possible.” Kaidan laughed, “Once I stormed out of class shouting something like ‘If you don’t treat me different because I’m better at math than everyone else, you can’t treat me different just because I have to go to a doctor!’… or however a ten-year-old would say that.”

“That’s pretty cute to imagine,” Shepard said, eyes soft.

“Really? Huh. Guess it was worth it then, huh?” Kaidan kissed Shepard again. “Thing is, my parents agreed with me. My dad had retired from the Alliance early just so they could have me. Maybe after years of having a son who didn’t really fit in, only to be told he could have a stroke on the playground any day… they were a little defensive of me."

"That's good to hear."

"Yeah! I always told myself when I had kids--back when I thought I would have kids--that I would support them the same way..."

"Back... when...?" Shepard's brow furrowed and his thumb fiddled with Kaidan's pocket.

"Well," Kaidan shrugged, "It's just I'm getting pretty old and... with the war..." There was an awkward moment of silence and Kaidan cleared his throat. "Anyway, that's not... uh... what was I talking about. Yeah, so I was a walking, fuming liability. Then all of the sudden, boom: biotic powers. Wasn’t much, I glowed once in a while when I got angry or laughed, I couldn’t even move things yet. But it made everyone even more afraid of me, kinda made me feel special… is that kinda pathetic or what?

“When Conatix came around and offered to give me an implant when I was 15 my parents jumped at the chance for me to have a normal life. I was a lot more well-adjusted in high school and people had stopped treating me like _that kid_. The headaches were awful, but I could really handle my abilities for the first time and they never got the best of me anymore. The L1 was such a flop with the first gen biotics that the doctors who were trying to teach me how to use the new L2 didn’t know what they were supposed to be teaching, but it didn’t matter. A year later and I got pulled from my high school and was on Jump Zero.”

“And you met Rahna.”

“Yeah. Rahna.”

“Have you ever looked her up? Seen what’s happened to her?”

“No. That part of my life is over. I made peace with that a long time ago.”

“I just thought you might like to have a different memory of her than her spurning you after you fought for her.”

“Heh. Yeah. But that’s not my memory of her. For a long time it was… the look on her face… sitting in the mess hall at our table like we always did… our friends. She was laughing at something someone said and just reached across the table for her glass. We were supposed to use biotics for everything:” Kaidan’s voice assumed the affect of an elderly turian commander, “’Biotics is the art of bending the universe to your desires, commanding the universe to behave as you wish it. You do not reach for _anything_ , you command it to come to you!’” Kaidan let out a dry chuckle, “He took the same view of us: bending us to his will. We hadn’t even noticed Rahna reaching for the glass, then there was this loud pop. Vyrnnus sent a long wave warp field straight through her arm. Just: pop. The bones in her arm shattered, ruptured right through the skin. There was blood everywhere. Everyone was stunned.”

“That’s a brutal thing to watch...”

“It was ironic: when Vyrnnus walked up to Rahna and I got between them, he started beating me with his fists. Pulled a knife. He was in a rage, had totally forgotten about his biotics. But the look on Rahna’s face when her arm turned into a bloody ragdoll…”

“That’s your last memory of her?”

“Not anymore. I remember the fun we had, the way she laughed, the way she smiled at me. Feeling like I was in a circle of really kind and accepting people. That’s what I remember. Her reaction after I killed Vyrnnus… I couldn’t blame her for that. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t just, and it wasn’t kind. It was everything Rahna and our group of friends weren’t. I look back at that now and realize she was being unfair, but that’s a pretty recent realization. I forgave her that, I hope she forgives me. I finally forgave myself for... being seventeen and hotheaded and... and everything. I suppose this many years on, that matters to me more than Rahna's forgiveness."

“Everyone deserves a second chance, Kaidan.”

“Took me a long time to learn that for myself, Shepard. Hell, I didn’t really understand that till… well… on Horizon…” He lapsed into silence.

“I thought we got past Horizon, Kaidan?”

“Yeah. Forgave each other. Sure. But maybe I haven’t forgiven myself, y’know? I did the same thing Rahna had done: kicked you to the curb because I couldn’t understand the way you reacted to the situation. I cared about you Shepard, even then. But… but I didn’t care enough about you to be able to see through my own hurt. The way I thought you had betrayed my ideal of you, the way I felt you had thrown aside your respect for me, thinking that if you really respected me, you would’ve contacted me to say you were alive. I was selfish. I needed you in my life, but I wanted it on my terms.”

Shepard wove his fingers together with Kaidan’s and pulled him in tight.

“I’m glad we get another chance.”

Kaidan’s voice was heavy when he spoke again, “So am I.”

“Because I do… care about you, Kaidan.”

“Yeah, that makes me feel… really great, Ben.” They sat like that for a while before Kaidan stirred and sat up, picking up the spanner. “Well, uh… if I can get this up to 1.7% by the time Garrus wakes up, it’ll really make his day. And… you’re on duty so… I bet you’ve got things to do…”

“Okay.” His hand slipped through Kaidan’s fingers as he made for the hatch. He turned back and watched as Kaidan resumed the audio playback of his novel and crawled back under the generator. Once he was back on the gangway, Shepard made a bee-line for Dr. Chakwas’ office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter picks up minutes after this chapter ends.  
> Shepard discusses Kaidan with Liara, after the Eden Prime mission, Kaidan and Shepard talk about Javik. Shepard talks about Akuze for the first time since his debrief.
> 
> Priority: Eden Prime  
> Talks with Javik


	14. The Difference between Surviving and Living

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Revisiting Eden Prime gets Shepard thinking about how far he's come in three years. After meeting Javik, Kaidan needs to show him how far he's come since Akuze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some violence in this chapter, regarding the attack on Akuze.

The entire wall of screens turned as one to face him when Shepard entered Liara’s quarters.

“Shepard, I’m glad you stopped by. Glyph has been telling me I’m working too hard, but I’ve gotten too used to ignoring him.”

“Hey Liara, got a minute?” The screens followed him across the room as he walked over to the table.

“Of course. I’ve… just been a little excited about this discovery on Eden Prime. Trying to read back through all the papers that might give me some kind of insight on how to interpret what we find down there.” She scratched at the side of her face, “Of course my access to library materials is much mor _extensive_ than when I was a student and there’s decades of—“ She looked up and caught the wry smirk on Shepard’s face, “Listen to me, babbling on.”

Shepard held up a hand, “You’ve spent your whole life studying the protheans, this is a big deal for you.”

“My whole life until recently, you mean.” She leaned against her console and shook her head, “It’s silly to be so worked up about a discovery like this with everything else going on. All I can think about is how this dig site might help us win the war. So much for my youthful idealism.”

“I know what you mean. Being a soldier didn’t exactly turn out the way I expected either.”

“Anyway, that’s not what you came to talk to me about, I’m sure.” She wiped her hands together and switched the screens behind her to a pleasant rendering of the galaxy. “What did you have on your mind?”

“I was just talking to Dr. Chakwas about biotic implants…” Shepard paused for a moment and leaned on his knees, steepling his fingers together in thought.

“…this is about Kaidan, isn’t it?”

Shepard blinked, “Yes, actually.”

“I suppose I’m just glad you’ve decided to officially tell me about the two of you. …assuming you _were_ going to tell me just now.” She quirked an eyebrow.

“It hasn’t been a secret...” Shepard scratched the back of his neck and cast her a sheepish glance. She smirked there for a moment and carefully regarded him, backlit by an audience of mobile monitors.

“Maybe not, but you and Kaidan aren’t the type to go broadcasting your personal lives everywhere, either. I think a lot of the crew have begun to suspect; but, as your friend, it’s always nice to hear these things for myself.” She crossed her arms and leaned against her console, a satisfied smile lighting up her features. Shepard slumped into a chair at her desk, chuckling to himself wearily.

“You _think_ the crew have started to suspect?”

“I’ve heard whispers,” she said with a secretive smirk. “Though I don’t think anyone would be so indecorous as to ask about it outright… well, almost no one.”

“Garrus?”

“Mm.” Liara nodded, eyes sparkling.

“I’m glad to give you some peace of mind,” Shepard rolled his eyes. “I would hate to make my friends lose sleep wondering about my personal life.”

“How considerate,” she beamed. “I figured it out seeing the way you looked at him when you brought him aboard the Normandy after the incident on Virmire three years ago.”

“We weren’t together then.”

“Really?” She cocked her head to the side.

“It’s only been since we rescued those Cerberus scientists.”

“ _Really_?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm…” Liara cast a meaningful sidelong glance at Glyph, who hovered impassively in the corner.

 “Liara, honestly.”

“I had just assumed from the way you two were bickering on Mars—“ When Shepard opened his mouth to protest again, Liara held up her hand, “If that’s what you say, Shepard, I believe you. I’m glad the two of you found each other. Kaidan was my very first friend aboard the Normandy. He was always so willing to help out and see if I needed anything to get adjusted…” She pulled up another chair and sighed deeply and eased into it, as if it was her first chance to sit in hours. “After my mother died, he came and sat with me for a long time. I insisted I wasn’t troubled, but he saw through me.”

“Yeah, he’s good at that,” Shepard smiled to himself.

Liara raised her eyebrows, “I’m very happy for you, Shepard.”

“He’s a good man.” He avoided her gaze.

“Kaidan is as committed to his duty and to his friends as you are.” She noticed the look on Shepard’s face “…is something troubling you about your relationship with Kaidan?”

Shepard grinned, shrugging one shoulder, “To be in a relationship—something real and deep, I mean—with another soldier, isn’t really something I expected to happen to me.”

“Why not?”

“Kaidan devoted himself fully to the Alliance; he overcame incredible odds to get to where he is.” He shifted on his bad hip, “I joined the Alliance because I had nothing else. I’ve made some bad choices, seen a lot of death. Kaidan pulls some of that darkness out of me…”

“Isn’t that a good thing? Why would that trouble you?”

“…I don’t know what to give back.”

Liara’s expression softened and she straightened in her chair, “He’s told you that he wants to be with you. It sounds like he has exactly what he needs: you.”

“Well,” Shepard idly ran his hand over the surface of the table, “I’d like to do a little better than that. I’ve always had trouble relating to people. It’s never come easy to me… watching expressions and studying people. I want to make sure I’m really putting my… my heart into this relationship.” He looked up, but his gaze swung all around the room without ever meeting Liara’s.

“I think you have a good start. Kaidan wouldn’t be with you if he didn’t believe in you. He knows you very well and so do I: you don’t need to worry,” she said softly. “And I can’t believe it’s finally _me_ telling _you_ that!”

“Thanks,” he sighed, finally meeting Liara’s eye. “Kaidan… he’s so sure. But there’s so many things in the way: Reapers, Collectors, Cerberus, Leviathan. When everything’s over… I want to show him that there’s nothing in my mind that’s standing in the way of… us.”

 “You love him?”

Ben sat a long time.

“…maybe.”

“Ah.” She gently laid her hand on Ben’s on the table, “Then you’ll know what to do.”

 “I hope so. It feels like we’ve had so little time.”

“Yes. It does. And speaking of time, we’ll be arriving at Eden Prime any time now, and I believe you came in with a question about biotic implants…”

**++**

Shepard climbed the stairs from the sub-deck in engineering, laughing. Behind him, Daniels and Donnelly had quietly resumed making out beneath the core, and Shepard’s footfalls were deliberately heavy to signal his departure.

Once again, he had come back to the Port Cargo Bay. It had been easily converted to suit the climate demands of their new prothean crew member, and Shepard had had a conversation with him once he was settled in.

And yet, here he was once again, lingering outside the door to the cargo bay. He had invited Javik to dinner, but the prothean had been disdainful of the idea. The crew was all abuzz about the warrior, and Kaidan had spent the last hour getting everyone to settle down and go about their work—all the while smiling his own head off in private when Shepard had met with him in the Obs lounge a few minutes ago.

Shepard took the lift up to the crew deck without bothering Javik again. Stepping out, he stopped in front of the memorial wall—a habit he’d developed since they’d left Earth—and read each name. He made for the Starboard Observation Lounge again, but hesitated in the corridor before the hatch could open. Like visiting Javik, he’d already stopped by to speak with Kaidan once tonight. They’d spoken for only a brief moment about Javik and Eden Prime before Kaidan resumed his report and Shepard went to talk to get updates from the rest of the crew.

Now he was back again.

Rolling his eyes, he finally returned to the elevator with a sigh and rode the lift to his cabin.

When his cabin doors opened, there was Kaidan, sitting in his office chair idly surveying the frame full of Shepard’s medals. When he looked up, he wore a grin as wide as Shepard’s.

“Kaidan!”

“Hey, there you are…” Kaidan set aside the medals.

“Still grinning, huh?”

“Hard not to today.” When Shepard stooped to kiss him lightly on the mouth, Kaidan pulled him down, tumbling Shepard onto his lap to deepen the kiss. He was grinning even wider when they parted, “And even if I didn’t have a good reason to be smiling, I would be now.” Shepard gave him a mischievous look and ran a hand down Kaidan’s chest as he got back to his feet.

“Come on,” Kaidan said, standing up and steering Shepard by the shoulders toward the couch, “I whipped up some protein supp for us. I know you always get tired after interacting with those prothean beacon things.”

Sure enough, there on the table were two steaming silver packets. Kaidan pushed Shepard down onto the couch and sat next to him, shoulders touching. Shepard laughed, picking up a package and digging his spoon in.

“I could get used to service like this.”

“And I could get used to feeling this good.” Kaidan leaned in to kiss him on the cheek, “I still feel silly, though. It’s an amazing discovery, totally unprecedented: a living prothean! Did anyone ever imagine in a million years?” He laughed and picked up his own pouch of supp, “I have to keep reminding myself he’s a person and not just a war asset.”

“I hear you.”

“How is our newest crew member holding up, anyway?” Kaidan said around a mouthful of protein mush.

“Fine.” Shepard was stirring his own pouch lazily, “I have trouble reading him, though. I think he still hasn’t gotten used to the idea that he’s the last of his kind, though.”

“Yeah, that’s, uh… gonna take some time.”

“I saw the fall of the last prothean base through that artifact. Javik was told he would be the only prothean to survive the Reaper purge the moment before he was frozen in suspended animation.” Shepard thoughtfully chewed on the smallest nibble of protein sup, “From his point of view, that was seconds before we woke him up on Eden Prime.”

Kaidan set his spoon down and regarded Shepard with an understanding smile, “Are you… worried about him?”

“No, he’s a soldier. Just like me—like us. But I’m trying to empathize with him. I was fighting to rescue my crew over Alchera, and a few minutes later I was waking up on a table in a Cerberus lab. Two years had passed. Everyone I knew and cared about had moved on.” He chuckled mirthlessly, “To lose fifty thousand years… To know you’re the last of your entire species—I can’t imagine.”

 “Javik’s strong, just like you.” Kaidan rubbed his shoulder, “He’ll be alright.”

“I’m sure of that. But… something like that stays with you even when you learn to move on.”

“I know a little about that too, maybe. I had never lost anyone under my command in more than a decade of service; then, within three months, I had lost Jenkins… Ash, and everyone that died at Alchera. I lost you too. Even though you came back, some of that loss… it’s still with me, y’know?”

“Yeah...”

“I mean, I guess it’s not exactly like your thing…” Kaidan shrugged, brow furrowing, “But it makes me want to go back and do a lot of things over again. Y’know, as optimistic as I feel about having Javik on board—someone who’s fought the Reapers before right when we need him—part of me still wonders what would’ve happened if they would have dug him up on Eden Prime before they found that damn beacon that brought Saren and Sovereign and… and all of this.”

“What do you think would change?” Shepard had eased back into the couch, the steaming dinner propped on his knee.

“I dunno, Shepard,” Kaidan shook his head and spooned another gob of protein into his mouth. “I guess I haven’t thought that far. We could have convinced the Council from the start, maybe. I wonder if Sovereign wouldn’t have shown his cards so soon. I wonder if Eden Prime would never have been attacked. No battle of the Citadel, no Virmire. I wonder if Ash would still be around.”

“You can’t think like that, Kaidan.” Shepard’s tone had an edge to it. Kaidan turned, eyebrow raised, and Shepard sighed, “They wouldn’t have been able to even open the stasis pod without access to the beacon.”

“Yeah. You’re probably right…” He’d gone back to scraping the sides of his pouch with his spoon, avoiding Shepard’s gaze.

“…If you start wondering how things _could_ have gone, you’ll make yourself crazy.”

“Yeah, you don’t need to tell me that, but it’s good to hear it from someone else once in a while.” He put his feet up on the coffee table and leaned back next to Shepard on the sofa, “I learned that pretty well.  At your funeral… wondering what I could’ve done. Even cursing myself out because I didn’t go back to look for your body personally. Watching them bury an empty casket… I never want to go through that again.”

“You never will.” Shepard’s eyebrows had locked into a stern expression and he placed a hand on Kaidan’s knee.

“Yeah…” Kaidan’s expression slowly melted into a smile “Especially since they decided to postpone the opening of your memorial on Akuze. I was supposed to attend that with Admiral Hackett, but then after the incident with Bahak—“

Shepard stood abruptly and paced over to the aquarium. Kaidan pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head and muttering a curse under his breath.

“Dammit, I’m sorry Shepard.”

“Those are two names I never wanted to hear in the same sentence.”

Kaidan stood up and walked over, lightly placing a hand on Shepard’s shoulder, but he resisted turning around. Eyes fixed on the floor of his aquarium, Shepard continued: “Akuze, Alchera, Bahak… it’s quite the roster of death on my resume, huh? I take responsibility for all those deaths, Kaidan. But sometimes it doesn’t seem fair to be the one to have survived.”

“You’re doing the right thing for all those people, Shepard.” Kaidan urged quietly. “Whether or not you’re responsible for their deaths, you’re doing more than anyone in the galaxy could have imagined to save everyone else. You’re fighting on their behalf. Still fighting for Ash.” Kaidan squeezed both Shepard’s shoulders.

“It’s all I can do.” Shepard crossed his arms and let his head fall softly against the aquarium glass, “Sometimes, I think that makes me more of a weapon than anything. One purpose.”

“It doesn’t make you a weapon,” Kaidan pressed into Shepard’s back, “It makes you human.”

“…after seeing what I saw down on Eden Prime, I think I know how Javik feels.”

“Then I’m glad you’re here for him.” He cautiously rubbed his hands up and down Shepard’s arms, “You have, uh… quite the talent for rehabilitating people.”

Shepard snickered and though he kept his arms crossed in front of him, he turned into Kaidan’s embrace and laid his head on Kaidan’s shoulder instead.

“Oh really?”

“Sure.” Kaidan smirked, now gently rubbing Shepard’s back, “Look at the well-adjusted Spectre I turned out to be. Three promotions in three years?”

“You earned your rank, _Major_.”

“True, but it took serving with the great Commander Shepard for them to finally look past my near constant pain and give me promotions instead of just heaping me with commendations and never moving me up the ranks,” Kaidan said with a wry chuckle.

Shepard lifted his head up and wrapped an arm around Kaidan’s neck, craning to kiss the top of his head. Kaidan smiled and slid his arms down around Shepard’s waist.

“Have I ever told you how happy I am to have you on the Normandy?” Shepard mumbled into the soft warmth of Kaidan’s hair.

“Not enough for me to get tired of hearing it.” Kaidan pulled out of Shepard’s arms, sitting on the bed and beckoning Shepard over. Shepard sat and Kaidan scooted behind him and began rubbing his shoulders. When he activated his biotics, Ben turned and shook his head.

“No, I’m fine; I don’t want you to make that… static ring in your head worse.”

“Ben,” Kaidan said, quiet but stern, “are you gonna make me regret telling you about that little side-effect?”

“I…” Shepard’s finger trailed along the edge of the bed, and he blinked hard, “I don’t want you to regret telling me anything.”  

“Then relax!” He began to apply focused biotic pulses through his palms, “So you saw Javik’s memories, huh?”

Shepard let his back relax as Kaidan’s hands began working the knots out of his shoulders, his body slumping forward.

“Not his memories exactly. Sort of a… security tape of sorts. The stasis pods were supposed to hold a million protheans. The Reapers attacked just as they were preparing to enter stasis; there was a power failure. The VI told him that there may not be enough power to keep anyone but him alive.”

“I can’t imagine that.” Kaidan’s voice was low, “All those people. My god.”

“He went into stasis knowing he would be the vengeance of his entire race. It’s his only comfort now.”

“I guess we’ve all got a bit of that in us by now. Thinking about my students that died in the early days of the Reaper attack, the people on the Normandy, on Horizon. I want to fight for them, but I want payback, too. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it.” He huffed a noisy sigh, “But your whole species? Being the only one left? Is that how you deal with the loss of your people? On… on Akuze?”

“On Akuze?” Shepard’s shoulders tensed for a moment beneath Kaidan’s hands, then slackened once more. “No. A thresher maw is a force of nature; there was never any use feeling like I needed revenge. And Cerberus? They’ve done so much to hurt everyone else that it’d be selfish to want revenge just for what they did to me.” Shepard stretched his neck and leaned forward to brace his elbows on his knees. “I’ve… never really talked to anyone about Akuze.”

“I only know the little blurb they had on the extranet.” Kaidan shrugged, but his massage had become hesitant. “…I didn’t want to look at the official Alliance records behind your back.”

“It was worse than the official reports said, anyway.”

“…do you _want_ to talk about it?”

Shepard shifted, face scrunched in consternation, “I’m not sure there’s really anything to say.”

“Tell me what happened,” Kaidan said gently. It took Shepard a long time to begin, clutching one fist tightly. He stared off, eyes unfocused as he spoke.

“There were fifty of us. Landed just outside the colony perimeter on Akuze. It was a small pioneer colony set up in a mountain basin. There were narrow gaps in the shield wall that led into sand flats to the east and west. It was a standard run: elite company showing up to any colony that’s gone off the grid. Usually there was nothing.”

“Been on more than a few of those missions,” Kaidan said, working down Shepard’s tense shoulder blades.

“The settlement was abandoned. Everyone had cleared out in a hurry,” Shepard continued without stopping, his tone level. “Everything was intact, but there were signs the civilians had fled—possessions stuffed into duffels then abandoned, food still cooking. The only indication anything had happened were signs of movement through the east gap in the shield wall.

“The shuttles returned to orbit to search for signs of slavers. They were scheduled to report in or pick us up in 24 hours after our ship patrolled from Akuze to the nearest relay. Our company headed east. We got about 15 klicks outside of the settlement, straight out onto the sand flat following the movement trails. Location was not ideal for an encampment. We began digging defensive trenches and secured it—“

“Shepard? Are you alright?”

Shepard’s breathing had grown shallow, “Yeah… I’m… sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, it’s okay.” He soothed his hands down Shepard’s chest and breathed softly until Shepard’s own breaths slowed. “You don’t have to give me the official report, Shepard—Ben. You’re not a soldier in here, okay?”

Shepard nodded, sighed almost inaudibly. “When the sun goes down on Akuze, it’s dark. There’s no moon. I was camped about 300 meters out, on the outer edge of our defensive perimeter. I was dug in, had been cycling through infrared and nightvision scopes for a few hours. Staring at the mountains. The lights back at the Camp went out, and there was a roar.”

“A thresher?”

“Five threshers.”

“… _Five_?”

“No human had ever seen a thresher maw then. Wasn’t until later I even found out how odd it was for five of them to be in the same place. They’re so territorial. It goes against everything we’ve ever observed about them since.”

“That man three years ago… he said it was Cerberus…”

“Toombs.” Shepard swallowed hard, “I didn’t believe him back then. I didn’t think Cerberus could control something like that. After seeing them up close, I didn’t think _anyone_ had that much power to… control those. Couldn’t figure out why they’d want to. But now… now I’ve seen what they’re really capable of. And I don’t know.”

“What did you do?” Kaidan asked, pulling Shepard back into his embrace.

“Our communication station were swallowed up as the first thresher breached. It was practically surgical. The helmet comms channels were garbled. There was the roar of the thresher maws. And soldiers screaming. My corner of the formation fell back. Fire lines were confused. I was shouting orders, trying to support the other sides and get everyone to the mountains.

“We were on the north side, and the threshers came in from the south. The formation collapsed, except for the platoon I had pulled together. When things were still, we secured our position. I split the team in three, each supporting a soldier with medical training. We headed back towards the center of camp.

“When the first team got 50 meters out from where I was, a thresher breached and sliced the medic—Sakai—in half. His fire support—Soto, Yang, and Holland—got crushed when the thresher dove back into the sand. We didn’t know what was attracting them at first, but I had been watching: the fastest moving groups of people were always the first to be attacked.”

“Sounds like you, watching, getting data…” Kaidan said quietly.

“I gave orders to cease all movement, but that didn’t matter. The threshers were attracted by the frequency our kinetic barriers put off.”

Kaidan watched Shepard’s face as he lapsed into silence, “When was the last time you thought about this, Shepard?”

“…the debrief. When it was all over. I try to avoid it.”

 “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to go dragging this through your head. It must be painful.”

“No,” Ben closed his eyes, “in the debrief, the counselor said that I was not showing the expected signs of trauma. And he was right. And that made me nervous.”

“…we don’t need to talk about this, Ben.” Kaidan’s brow was furrowed when he ran his fingers through Shepard’s hair.

“No. I _want_ to talk about this with you. There’s a lot that’s happened in my life… and most of it hasn’t been happy. And you deserve to know.” He took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before continuing, “We were surrounded my thresher maws a moment later, we pushed for the closest ridge—based on the way they moved, I figured they couldn’t make it to the mountains. I would secure our position off the flat, and we’d discuss rescue operations. It was what I should have done from the start. It was a terrible choice to have to make: try to rescue everyone or save the people who were left.

“It was horrible. Pullman—helping me cover our left flank—was killed almost immediately. A thresher maw roared and I heard a wet slap. The acid burned through his armor instantly. The left side of his body liquefied. He screamed. Loud. I got knocked down by an infra sonic shock. Should’ve killed me. It had killed others. I was trying not to lose consciousness.

“Corporal Evensworth was 10 meters away. He was screaming out my name. He was in bad shape, his leg was laying in the sand a few meters away. He was bleeding out. I tried shouting at him to stay still, but he kept trying to crawl over to his leg, shouting for me to help him. I crawled on my stomach to try to get to him, to calm him down. Then he was gone.

“My helmet was cracked and the comms kept cutting in and out, but from what little I heard, it was nothing but people screaming or begging for help. Every once in a while somebody’s scream would be cut off all the sudden. The ground was shaking underneath me. I was trying to stay still. Someone else—I couldn’t even recognize her, she was so bloody—activated her shields, stood up trying to get to her gun. That was it. The rumbling beneath me stopped and then she was gone too. And that was everyone.”

“Everyone…?”

“In minutes, the entire unit was incapacitated. It took people a lot longer to die though, those that didn’t get swallowed. I tried to talk over the comms, relaying everything I knew: telling people not to move, telling people not to activate their barriers, asking where people were. I didn’t know if anyone could hear me. All I heard back were screams.” He looked up at Kaidan, jaw tight.

“What did you do?” Kaidan was gentle, stroked his hand slowly down the side of Shepard’s face, squeezed him tightly around the chest.

 “I laid on my stomach like that for 18 hours, trying to comfort people over the comms.” Shepard stared back up at the ceiling, “How do you comfort people who are dying? I didn’t know, then. I had never seen anyone do that before. I read about it when I got back… but then, I didn’t know. I knew I should try though. Tried shushing them and telling them it was going to be alright. And I told them lies: that the shuttle would be back soon, or that I was coming to get them. Told them to fully unload their medigel. It wasn’t going to do any good, not with the kind of trauma they’d all received. Maybe it would help with the pain. But I didn’t give up on them.

“I crawled towards whoever I could hear screaming closest to me. I had to move so slowly. I never got to anyone. Some of them eventually squirmed enough where they attracted a thresher maw. But most of them just bled out. I listened as the moans all over the sand flat died out one by one. I couldn’t hear anything over the comms, but it had been going out since my helmet cracked, and I didn’t know if that meant everyone was dead or if my comms had died. The sun was coming up.”

“How did you get out of there?”

“I don’t remember too well. I lay in the sand for a long time. Till the sun was almost overhead. I was still trying to crawl towards any bodies I could see. I didn’t want to believe everyone was dead, I didn’t have any proof.

“I took off my helmet and threw it as far as I could. The movement was enough to bring up a thresher maw. It breached and looked around… Then three more all over the flat, attracted by the movement of the first. I remember thinking how strange that so many giant creatures could share such a small area.

“I tried to figure out what had happened to the colonists. The colony showed no signs of damage. Threshers don’t need to hunt, and they would have trouble getting through the gap in the shield wall.”

“What did happen?”

“We never found out. The colonists were gone. Nothing made sense. It was well past the time when the shuttles would’ve returned to collect our platoon at the LZ. It would be hours before they would be able to get word of our radio-silence back to HQ and send another team looking for us.

“I knew they’d send shuttles on flyovers, might even land one to try to search for any sign of our camp. They wouldn’t find anything, it had been swallowed up, and any bodies were going to be covered up by the morning winds. If they landed they would die. When the first shuttle appeared on the western horizon flying towards our last reported position, I knew I wouldn’t be able to signal without moving too much, I knew they couldn’t land to get me anyway. I knew they wouldn’t be able to pick up my life sign from orbit.

“I activated the kinetic barriers on my chest piece and hurled it. Three thresher maws appeared just as the shuttle was flying over: now the Alliance would know what happened, they wouldn’t try to land, but they wouldn’t be waiting for me at the LZ. I crawled toward the settlement, shuttles scanned the desert throughout the day, but any time they got too low, the sound was enough to bring up the thresher maws. Eventually the shuttles stopped coming. I don’t know how long it took me to get back to the settlement… throwing pieces of my armor ahead of me to see if the threshers were still around. I had gotten to my feet, only wearing my boots and one of my greaves, by the time I reached the settlement. I had used all my medigel and the buzz was the only thing keeping me up. I made it to the comms station in the settlement.”

“That’s… that’s unbelievable, Shepard.”

Kaidan had drawn Shepard into his chest a long time ago, and the two men lay on the bed wrapped around each other as Shepard related his story.

“They wouldn’t land a rescue shuttle for fear of the thresher maws, even inside the shield wall. I used some high powered seismic charges I salvaged from the settlement. Closed the gap in the shield wall, sealed off the settlement from the sand flat to the east and to the west. I finally convinced them it was safe to land. The entire colony, my entire platoon, I was all that was left.”

“You did what you had to do to survive.”

“Yeah, I did.” Shepard swallowed, “Do you remember, three years ago, when we first came to the Citadel and I cleared up that problem with Sha’ira?”

“The asari consort?” Kaidan chuckled, “Yeah, I think so. She was pretty grateful, if I remember right.”

“She told me I was ‘unyielding,’ that there was ‘a wall between me and everyone else.’” He huffed a small sigh, “But you were there, I guess I don’t need to repeat it.”

“Well I can’t say I remember it verbatim like you,” Kaidan said lightly.

“…I’ve been thinking about that since talking to Javik… Sha’ira said, ‘This may be who you are, but it is not who you will become. It only forms the basis of your future…’”

“Wow… sounds, uh…” Kaidan puffed a warm breath against Shepard’s neck, “Sounds like she had a pretty good read.”

“That’s all I’d ever done.” Ben’s voice had become quietly heated, “As a kid. At the Villa. But when I thought about it later, that wasn’t enough for me anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I got promoted as soon as I was out of the hospital. I was good at surviving. But that wasn’t what it was, this time. No one on that flat was incompetent. I wasn’t so elite to survive it where others hadn’t. I didn’t give them bad orders. But they were dead anyway.”

“That sounds like a pretty bleak way of looking at things.”

“Everyone those threshers killed on Akuze fought to the bitter end because they had something they wanted to live for. I didn’t. All I had was instinct. When I was a kid, I survived because I knew how to keep my head down and get things done. I thought that at least I would always have that. But I didn’t have that on Akuze, and I lived anyway.”

“Ben—“

“—I had survived Akuze because I was lucky. Those people died because… well, it wasn’t their fault. Now I knew that I could die at any moment. And suddenly that was okay. I didn’t just want to survive anymore. I wanted to be the best so I could stop that from happening to other people. People who had things to live for that I didn’t. Not because I thought I could buck fate, but because I knew that everyone deserves to live a good life. They all have something to live for, and as long as I didn’t, I would do everything in my power…” Shepard sighed, “I feel like I’m not making sense.”

“It’s a kind of sense, I suppose.” Kaidan’s voice was low and quiet, “I think I’m starting to understand you a little better, Shepard. Do you… do you still feel the same?”

“About people? Yeah. More than ever, in the last year. As a kid, I assumed everyone was trying to survive, took it for granted that they’d do whatever they had to do to get what they wanted. I suppose I still think that’s true, but after Akuze I had to assume the best about people. If their lives were as fragile as those colonists, as those soldiers, as mine… well then I wanted them to have a good life. No matter who they were. People were still going to die… I’d seen too much death to stop believing that, and if they died they died. But as long as I was around, I would give everything to protect them.”

“You’ve… uh…” Kaidan slid around Shepard and kneeled in front of him at the foot of the bed to catch his eyes. Shepard’s expression was impassive, and Kaidan took both Ben’s hands in his and kissed both palms softly. “You’ve got people who care about you, Ben. A lot to live for.”

“People who depend on me—“

“—no,” Kaidan turned Shepard’s hands and kissed the scarred knuckles, looked up from under heavy brows, “people who _care_ about you.” Shepard smiled and eased off the bed to sit on the floor, face to face with Kaidan.

“Well…” he touched Kaidan’s face hesitantly, “I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. And I… wanted to tell you about that. Because that’s who I am. Who I was? I don’t know sometimes. I know the way I look at people—life and death situations—is a little… muddy.”

“Is that why you focus so hard on the end-result? When I asked you if you would’ve shot me on the Citadel, you said that you trusted I would do the right thing, so it didn’t matter if you would’ve or not.”

“I—I don’t know that that’s…” Shepard rubbed a hand across his brow. “I don’t want you to think that I’m… so cold… that I don’t care when people die… that I would just discard you if you died.”

“Shepard,” Kaidan touched Shepard’s hand on his cheek. “Your whole life has been about survival, closing yourself off to everything but keeping yourself and the people you care about alive. If it would’ve meant saving lives—no, more than that—if it would’ve meant saving lives without letting Cerberus sell out humanity’s soul to do it, you would’ve taken the shot.”

“No, I could never—“

“Ben. You didn’t. You didn’t have to. You would’ve saved the council with a gun if you had to, and you would’ve put my name on that wall downstairs… and then you’d go and win this war.” Kaidan’s expression was hard to read, but he smiled lightly and placed a hand on Shepard’s chest. “But you didn’t have to do that. You saved the council because you proved to me that you’re going to win this war, and you’re going to do it for the right reasons.”

“…I need you here, Kaidan.”

Kaidan gently touched Shepard’s face and smiled, “Well I’m right here.”

“Stay the night?”

“…yeah. Okay. Of course.”

“Thank you.” Shepard laughed suddenly, “I found Donnely and Daniels making out below deck tonight.”

“Oh really?” Kaidan snickered. “What’d you do?”

“Left them alone. I’m happy for them. They’re not hurting anyone.” He leaned back into Kaidan and pulled the major’s arms tighter around him.

Kaidan smiled sheepishly and kissed Shepard lightly, “Are you feeling alright about Akuze?”

“Yeah. You said that you had put brain camp behind you. Same with Akuze. It’s in the past.” Shepard smiled at him, but the same weariness reflected in each other’s eyes.

Kaidan settled down next to Shepard on the floor. He leaned his head against Ben’s shoulder as they watched the fish sweep into a frenzy as the aquarium VI distributed the food. Colorful shapes darted around the tank, as if this meal would be their last.  

“Yeah… All in the past.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:  
> Back to the Citadel. Steve Cortez has a talk with Kaidan. Meanwhile, Shepard and Garrus have a bro-date on the Presidium.
> 
> Meet with Javik in Embassies  
> Meet with Steve at Purgatory  
> Meet with Garrus in Docks  
> 


	15. The Difference between Things Said and Unsaid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Docked at the Citadel, Steve's a little tipsy and wants to talk to Kaidan about loss. Shepard lets Garrus win at a target shooting competition but is too nice to admit it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I realize how many of my chapters begin with in medias res dialogue, I sometimes shudder. But I don't shudder enough to change it always. Sorry if these chapters are coming out too fast, I felt bad for only posting one last week.

“Major, didn’t expect to see you down here.”

“Hey, Steve. Was actually looking for Lieutenant Vega, guess I should’ve figured he’d be on the Citadel.”

 “Sure thing, sorry sir. The lieutenant’s probably in the docks playing poker with some refugees, if you need to find him. I can call him up on the comms if you’d like—“

Kaidan held up a hand, “It’s alright, I was actually coming to cancel _our_ poker game tonight, but it sounds like he’s already found another game to attach himself to.”

Cortez smirked and shuffled awkwardly. Kaidan glanced around the empty shuttle bay, most of the crew was on the Citadel either resupplying or enjoying a little time to themselves between missions.

The Normandy had been docked at the Citadel for hours, having headed straight back after thwarting Cerberus on Eden Prime. Javik had only recently disembarked, giving Kaidan a curt nod at the con, shoulders squared off and swaggering about the unfamiliar ship.

Shepard had been eager to search Bryson’s lab ‘before the _next_ urgent thing came up,’ but while they were in the CIC together, Traynor had mentioned to Kaidan that he had planned on keeping all sorts of personal appointments with various members of the crew first. Kaidan had agreed to take a double shift to ensure the crew got some shore leave—once they had the information to track Bryson’s next lead on Leviathan, they’d be out in a hurry.

The Normandy was running on a skeleton crew in port, and Kaidan had been walking around the ship making sure the people left behind felt like they weren’t getting ripped-off. Mostly, he’d spent his time reading _Fifth Business_ , standing at the conn. Watching the way Cortez eyed him, Kaidan highlighted and bookmarked the passage he’d been reading in the elevator on the way down.

 “Surprised to see you still on the ship, sir.”

Kaidan yawned briefly and rubbed his temple, shaking his head lightly, “Just ‘Kaidan’ off duty, Steve.”

“Ah—alright. Can do.”

Kaidan walked over to the armory console and idly punched a few buttons, “I always volunteer to take the con while in port. I like an empty ship, and I haven’t got much of a reason to get on the Citadel these days. The requisition officer got me a few new uniforms, and that was all the shopping I needed to do.” He shrugged, and Steve fiddled with his console, “But that’s no reason you shouldn’t head out, you’ve spent a lot of time working down here; and I know for a fact you’re not on duty.”

 “I get that a lot,” Steve chuckled. “Not to worry though. I just got back a few minutes ago.”

“Oh? So what caught your fancy this trip? A stroll through the Presidium Commons? Or are you more of an arcade man?”

“Purgatory, actually,” Steve grinned.

“Ah! Lieutenant Cortez likes to unwind at the club?”

“Sure do. It’s been—feels like years since the last time I was in a nightclub! Can hardly remember the last time I was at a club stag.” A shadow passed through Cortez’s expression, but he managed to laugh through it.

“Good! I was worried you were getting swallowed up in your work down here,” Kaidan set his pad down on the console and arched his back into a deep stretch.

“Not gonna happen.” Steve shook his head, “In dry dock, I used to spend 18 hours a day down here getting the Normandy retrofit underway. Now that I need to split my time with maintaining the shuttle and flying you guys into hell every other day, I feel like I haven’t been taking duties down here seriously enough.” He stopped tapping at the haptic display and rested his hip against the console, folding his arms, “You think it’d be easier to bury yourself in work with a war on. To be honest, I think I work less now than I did before we left Earth.”

“Yeah?” Kaidan cast a sidelong look at the lieutenant. Steve’s shoulders sagged and Kaidan turned to face him.

“I suppose maybe I was trying to avoid thinking about things.” His voice had become quiet. He pinched at the bridge of his nose and gave a weary smile, “Shepard was the one who shook me out of it. He helped me see that I had to seize the moment, to not take anything for granted.”

Kaidan grinned and cocked his head to the side, “Shepard said that, huh?” He chuckled when Steve raised an eyebrow and shook his head, waving off the comment. Steve stared at his feet for a long moment before sighing deeply.

“And I’ve been trying but…” Cortez had squared his posture, but there was a vulnerability behind his eyes. “I can’t believe I’m actually going to ask this question, and I’ve probably had too much to drink tonight for this, but… have you ever grieved for somebody, Major? I mean, somebody close to you?”

“…Yeah.” Kaidan said at last, “Yeah I have.”

“And, if I can ask… how long did you grieve for… that person?”

“Two years.”

“What did you do?” Steve leaned in almost imperceptibly.

“I buried myself in my work,” Kaidan smiled bitterly, surveying the console, the opened panel on the side of the Kodiak. “I spoke at the funeral, and I went to all the memorial services. I took on new projects, tried to make new friends. Got drinks with a doctor on the Citadel.”

“When did _you_ decide it was time to move on?” Steve asked, and Kaidan folded his arms.

“It’s sort of complicated,” he shook his head dismissively. “I don’t know that I’m the best person to talk to about this Steve…”

“With respect, sir,” Steve’s expression had hardened, “I think you’re exactly the person to talk to about this.” For a moment, they stood in silence.

“It took me a long time to realize how much I needed to grieve.” Kaidan’s tone was low and quiet, “I found a way to mourn, and I thought that was the end of it… thought I had moved on… but…”

“But then he came back to you.”

Kaidan stared into Cortez’s eyes until the younger man squirmed and looked down at the deck.

“Took me a while to realize he came back, too.”

“I’m sorry Major, that was out of line, I—“

“It’s alright, Steve.” His voice was calm and there was a smile in his eyes, “Are you grieving someone?”

“…Robert. My husband.” Steve’s mouth pulled into a hard line, “I lost him at Ferris Fields.”

“I didn’t know, I’m so sorry.” Kaidan rose to his full height, “”How long did you two have together?”

“April would’ve been our first anniversary…”

Steve’s gaze shot up from the floor, and when he smiled there was only the faintest hint of bittersweet grief there.

“Robert was… he was great. Nothing ever got under his skin. We would have assignments where we’d be apart for a long time, both of us had positions that led to a lot of stress; but he made up for all of it whenever we were together. Everyone always thought I was I was the ‘fun’ one in the relationship… but that was because they didn’t know me like Robert did,” he laughed, then sobered. “No one did. Uhh, anyway, I was a pretty high stress person—everything always weighed me down—and… it was always Rob keeping things light.

“But he always looked so serious… So everyone thought Robbie was… he hated being called that. Haha, was the only thing that could turn that resting… pissed-off expression of his into an actual frown… sometimes you just need to do that, right? –Not that it’s good to piss your husband off intentionally, but when someone’s so closed off you need to get _any_ kind of reaction…” Steve pushed the heel of his hand into his forehead.

“Sorry, ummm…” Cortez chuckled, overwhelmed. “…he was so handsome, he would sit there thinking like he was some… beautiful statue. I had the hardest time trying to make him laugh… but he was always just messing with me, just seeing if I would keep trying and—“ Steve shook his head hard, his laugh caught in the back of his throat, “Phew! You got me babbling, Kaidan.”

“I asked.” Kaidan smiled warmly. “He meant a lot to you, and he sounds like a great guy. Definitely worth babbling about, eh? That’s… nothing to be embarrassed about, Steve.”

“I appreciate that.” Steve’s arms hung at his sides, his shoulders slumped. “I think I really figured out the way I needed to mourn him about a month ago. I’m moving on—don’t worry, I am. I don’t want to take anything for granted anymore. That’s… what Commander Shepard finally convinced me to do.”

“I’m glad. Really glad to hear that, Steve.”

“Major—Kaidan—Shepard’s a good man, too. I’m glad he came back to you…”

There was a long silence before Kaidan spoke.

“Me too,” he said softly.

As the two men stood there, the Fenris mech that had been tromping about the bay stopped at Kaidan’s ankles, the bright ribbon of a chem scan swishing over his body before it stalled, the machine watching him with impassive digital eyes. Kaidan waggled his fingers at the mech, avoiding watching Steve’s face while Cortez brushed a hand over his eyes. A moment later, the mech turned and waddled over to Steve’s ankles, resting back on its ‘haunches’ to scan the lieutenant.

“I think you should take more time on shore leave, Steve.”

“I enjoy my work here, sir,” Steve said, clearing his throat. “A quick trip to Purgatory for a drink and some dancing is more than enough to keep me functioning. And I’ve got James looking out for me too. But trying to pick up a quick night of fun didn’t really feel like what I needed right now anyway, and… it’s not exactly the best time to be looking for a steady relationship. Besides, I could ask you why you’re not making a little more of your shore leave with… someone special? Hope I’m not out of line here, sir.”

“Shepard loves the Citadel,” Kaidan laughed, “city streets make him feel at home. It’s a little busy for me, though: the lights, the noise. And Shepard ends up making most of the trip business anyway.”

“I hear that! Between schmoozing with diplomats and meeting every member of his crew for one on one drinks, there must not be very much time for the Commander to take for himself.”

“He loves it,” Kaidan grinned. “Don’t ever let him convince you he’s ‘too busy!’”

“And you love the skeleton shift, huh?”

“You bet! Speaking of which, if I don’t finish my Spectre report in the next hour I’m going to chew through my clothes,” Kaidan took a few steps forward and patted Steve on the shoulder, his face growing serious. “Steve, thank you for telling me about Robert. I’ve never been married… and nothing was happening between Shepard and me when he went MIA, so I’m not gonna pretend like our situations are the same, but…  If getting him back was the best thing that’s ever happened to me, then losing Shepard… was the worst moment of my life. I told my superiors all the same things, fooled the psych profiler. Every time I thought I had moved on I thought about all the things I never got to say to Shepard, all the things I didn’t realize.

“So… Steve… I know you’re not always going to feel like you’re moving on, and don’t feel guilty about dwelling on the past once in a while. But when that happens, use that feeling to remember that Robert’s still a part of you, and remember all the things you _did_ get to say to each other. That’s how you move forward, I think.” Kaidan looked up apologetically, shrugged his shoulders just a little.

“Thank you Kaidan.” Steve’s voice was hushed. “I… appreciate you saying that. Not a moment for granted.”

“In our line of work, that’s the only way to live, eh? We see too much danger every day.”

“That’s for sure! Does… well… that danger… ever make you second guess things?”

“…does it ever worry me? About losing Shepard? Sure.” Kaidan nodded, “But it doesn’t make me second guess my duty: what we’re doing here is important. And it doesn’t make me second guess… being with Shepard. I lost him once, and he was gone just like that. I think about what it’d be like to lose him again after getting him back… and I can’t stand it. That’s why the time we have now is important.”

“Sounds like you made the best argument for getting out for more shore leave, Major.” Steve’s grin turned sly.

“Sounds like we both do, huh Lieutenant?”

“I hear that!”

Kaidan said goodnight and plucked the pad with his novel off the console and walked back to the lift. As the doors closed, he read the passage he had highlighted:

> _“Mankind cannot endure perfection; it stifles him. He demands that even the saints should cast a shadow. If they, these holy ones who have lived so greatly but who still carry their shadows with them, can approach God, well then, there is hope for the worst of us.”_  

 

++

 

“I’m Garrus Vakarian and this is now my favorite spot on the Citadel!”

“It’s windy up here!”

“I think I’m going to erect a monument right here, bronze this gun so the whole galaxy knows!”

“That you’re the king of the bottle-shooters,” Shepard said wryly. “Glad you’re around, Garrus: never know when those bottles are gonna revolt.”

“Heh, well it’s a good thing I’ve got two full ones right here we can make an example of. You know, so the other ones don’t get any ideas.” Garrus handed Shepard a purple bottle, “Hope you can stomach the drink I grabbed for you, I’m not very familiar with human alcohol, but I figured you’d need _something_ to help you swallow your defeat.”

“It’s good to see all those years of coming up second, haven’t made you a poor sport about finally winning one.” Shepard opened his bottle with a twist.

“Laugh it up, Shepard, but I’ll always have the memory of this little contest here to keep me smiling when we’re fighting for the fate of the galaxy.” He clinked his glass with Shepard and the two stood staring down at the curve of the Presidium. Shepard finally sank to the ground, sitting crosslegged, stretching his back with a wince. A moment later Garrus joined him, staring up at the artificial sky about 10 meters above their heads. “Now obviously I know it’s an artificial sky, but I suppose I’ve never really noticed _how_ fake it was till I saw it this close.”

Shepard looked up. The false clouds looked ragged and blocky around the edges, the even blue of the sky obviously composed of thousands pixels in different hues. Still, there was something disconcerting about being so close to ‘the sky;’ as if being this close should have revealed something three-dimensional about the perfectly sculpted clouds, but they remained flat no matter how close you got.

“This place sickens me, Shepard” Garrus said, the reflection of a passing ‘cloud’ catching in his eye-piece, “after dealing with the bureaucracy in C-Sec for so long and seeing the council turn a blind eye to the threat of the Reapers knocking on our door for years. That’s why it pisses me off every time I have to admit how damn beautiful this place is.”

“You getting sentimental on me, Garrus?”

“My monument, my speech, Shepard. This place was my home for most of my adult life. I came here thinking it was the pinnacle of galactic civilization. Just like the stupid, fake sky: the closer I got, the more I noticed the lies and the politics, the ass-kissing sycophants and self-serving councilors with their private army of lawless Spectres.”

“Uh oh.”

“And the worst thing about it was that the Spectres were the only ones getting anything done. I think this is the first time in years I’ve looked out over the Presidium and seen millennia of history, instead of all the political hoops.” There was a note of surprise in his voice.

“If I knew winning a little shooting match would give you an epiphany about saving the galactic community, I would’ve let you beat me a long time ago.”

“Heh,” Garrus took a swig of his beer. “Well. If I’m an example of a paragon of military might and technical prowess, then let’s say I recognize what the Citadel really is now, more than ever. It represents the best our civilization’s got to offer, and the worst,” He took another swig, “And the Reapers built it.”

“They built the station. They didn’t put the people here, they didn’t unite the galaxy.” Shepard spared a sidelong glance, “We did that.”

“The kind of civilization we have right now wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for this station, or the Mass Relays for that matter,” Garrus said cynically, “It’s like Sovereign told us: the Reapers have been at this for millions of years, they’ve laid everything out to help us advance our culture, just like they were fattening us up for slaughter…. I hate that I still look at this place and see home.”

“We’re not trying to protect the station, we’re trying to protect the people.”

“But it’s war, Shepard, and there are hard calls to make.” He took a deep swig from his bottle, “When the time comes, the turian fleet will leave Palaven undefended to fight the Reapers in Sol. If Palaven is wiped out and Earth is wiped out and we somehow manage to stop the Reapers, what will any of that mean if the Citadel gets destroyed? Or if we blow up all the Relays and get cut off from one another? If the whole galaxy goes back to a stone age, what’s the point?”

“That’s not going to happen. We’re going to win _because_ of these alliances and this community. It’s not a given. The Citadel doesn’t create those alliances, neither do the Relays. We’re fighting for the future, the Reapers have been advancing the galaxy for so long with lies and with fear. We’re going to show them we have a better way,” Shepard said icily, “then we’re going to kill them.”

“You really believe that, huh Shepard?”

“I have to.”

“Feels a little like using their own tools against them, doesn’t it? Like what the Illusive Man wants to do.”

“The Illusive Man wants to control the Reapers. We’re going to show him we don’t need whatever they’re offering.”

“Except we did,” Garrus gestured to the Citadel, laid out before them.

“I don’t know what the Reapers’ plan is. I don’t know why they made all of this. They helped us find each other faster, but they didn’t control what would happen once we met. The fact that a turian and a human are drinking beers together is proof of that. That’s our greatest asset. We don’t owe the Reapers anything for that. So are we turning their weapons against them? No. We’re defeating them with something better.”

Garrus stared down at the pools and fountains far below, reflecting the moving clouds amidst green parks. He took a long pull from his beer:

“…when the Reapers first invaded the batarian homeworld, the admirals of the turian fleet studied the reports of Reaper tactics like first-year academy cadets. They said things like ‘when this war is over, our cruisers will be a century ahead of even the asari,’ confident they could integrate Reaper strategies into conventional warfare. I told Ensign Neil the same thing on the Normandy, we’re raised to think like that. You have to appreciate your enemy if you ever hope to beat them. Then when the Reapers hit Palaven… no one talked like that anymore. We’re trying to survive, and no one’s feeling too good about our chances. If we win, everything is going to be different, like it or not. Who knows if it’ll be better.”

“’Alive’ is better than ‘extinct.’”

“Mm. Yeah, so they say...” Garrus cocked his head to the side with a smirk.

“Your people will keep fighting, Garrus. They never gave up, not during the rachni wars, not during the krogan rebellions. Those were grim, hopeless fights, but still they fought, and they’ll do it again. They’ll fight. We’ll fight. And we’ll win.”

“Yeah, we will. Soldiers till the end.” He took a swig of beer, tapped the bottle against the ground, “…Or at least that’s what I always thought.”

“Changed your mind lately?”

“Maybe.” He sighed, “Have you ever thought about retiring, Shepard? Letting someone else fight the next war?”

“Not a lot of time to think about anything other than how we’re gonna finish this one.” Shepard grinned, drank cautiously at his beer before continuing, “I never wanted to be anything other than a soldier… but lately, yeah. I’ve thought about it.”

“I think when this war is over I’m going to tell them they can keep all the medals if they point me to the warmest beach in the universe and don’t expect me to come back!” Garrus held his drink aloft and Shepard laughed, then he motioned to Shepard’s own bottle, barely touched, “You’re slowing down, Shepard. Don’t tell me you’re getting old.” Garrus swallowed the last bit of beer in his bottle and discarded it, pulling another full one from the cooler and cracking it open for himself.

“I thought you wanted to come up here to _not_ get wasted.”

“You’ve seen me drink: the worst thing two beers is going to do to me is give you a chance to actually beat me at the next rifle contest.” He took a swig, “Besides, I need to get you a little wasted so you’ll actually talk to me about Kaidan.”

“What’s there to talk about?” Shepard shrugged, but Garrus gave him a suspicious glare.

“I figured as long as we were discussing post-war plans it might be interesting to talk about the recent romance in your life.”

“How about we talk about your love life, Vakarian,” Shepard chuckled, his back straightening. “You’ve spent a lot of time calibrating alone these days.”

“Calibrating just means it’s ready for action at a moment’s notice.”

“And that it’s not getting any action in the meantime.”

“Very funny, Shepard,” Garrus cut in. “But you’re avoiding my question.”

“I don’t think I _heard_ a question.”

“Look, I’ve known you for a long time Shepard. Never seen you show interest in anyone, even in some pretty extreme situations where—let’s face it—a little action in that private cabin of yours probably would’ve relieved some tension. And it’s not like you haven’t had options for some… stress relief, either.”

“You flatter me, Garrus.” Shepard rolled his eyes.

“Come on Shepard, when we were with Cerberus, we went places where you could’ve had your fill of the finer things in life and not even delayed the mission. Not to mention that you had tight-stuffed shirts and leather-clad ass thrown in your face from every direction on your own ship. And yet the most I’ve ever seen from you is giving that Blue Sun merc a look-over at the bar in Afterlife. With the mustache?” Garrus straightened suddenly and took a swig, “Come to think of it, that was right after Horizon, wasn’t it?”

“And people say you don’t pay attention.” Shepard’s thumb was tracing circles against the side of his bottle.

“What is it James calls it: a ‘wingman’ has to know the right time to step in.”

“Still not hearing a question here.”

“Ah! Right. All that opportunity for guilt free recreation or no-strings attached relationships, and here you break the Alliance’s crazy fraternization regs to be with Kaidan Alenko—“

“Technically as Spectres our service with the Alliance is—“

“You’re telling me you wouldn’t be with Kaidan if you both weren’t Spectres?”

“…alright.”

“Aha!” Garrus jeered and forcibly clinked his bottle with Shepard’s. “So: why Kaidan?”

“Why does it matter?” Shepard cleared his throat.

“Maybe because I feel guilty that I’ve been a bad ‘wingman,’” Garrus offered with a wave of his hand. “Other than you, I don’t know anyone on the Normandy better than I know Kaidan, and after all those missions the three of us went on back in the day, I’m wondering if I just really don’t understand how to recognize smoldering human sexual tension.”

“Hah!”

“So… still not answering. Why Kaidan?”

“Why Kaidan, huh?” Shepard’s eyes narrowed, expression resolving into a weary smirk.

“Exactly.”

“Hm.” Shepard finished his beer in a single long pull and held out his hand as Garrus slipped the next opened bottle into it. “It just feels right.”

“That’s a start. Go on.” Garrus said, still grinning, but his mandibles relaxing into a more serious expression.

“The way you talk about the Citadel… I look at Kaidan and I see the best the galaxy has to offer in one man.” He looked up, the pixelated clouds floating above. “But you said the closer you got to the Citadel, the more you realized how corrupt it really was. How fake it could be. Like this sky. But that’s not Kaidan. He’s the real thing.”

“He’s the _real_ sky, huh?” Garrus said, tone dripping with cynicism. But Shepard merely returned a huge grin and nodded.

“Exactly.”

“Huh.” Garrus started to chuckle, but soon was laughing hard while Shepard took a swig of his beer.

“He’s a good man. He’s made his mistakes and he’s learned from every one,” Shepard continued after they had settled down. “A lot of people need to really struggle over the right thing to do. He doesn’t need to—not really. Kaidan just knows. But he puts himself through that struggle anyway. He has more integrity than any man I’ve ever known. He thinks too much and it gets him in trouble. There’s a lot of pain in his past. Some of it he wants to let go of and doesn’t know how to. Some of it he wants to keep close, because he knows it makes him stronger.

“When I think about losing him to the Reapers… I don’t know if I could take that. People like Kaidan are the reason we should be fighting this war—on Earth, on Palaven, on the Citadel. And Kaidan… he’s too important to me. I don’t know if I would fight as hard if I didn’t know that he’d still be out there somewhere.”

“Wow, Shepard.”

 “I want him in my life. It feels right.”

“I suppose I should have known: when Commander Shepard decides to do something, he doesn’t half-ass it. You two are pretty serious then?”

“Yeah.”

“You must be. I haven’t heard you string together this many words in a row as long as I’ve known you.” He took a sip of his beer, “…when you’re not making a speech about… stopping a rogue Spectre or… a suicide mission.”

“Hmm,” Shepard lifted his eyebrows placidly.

“And, I’m obviously not one to sneer at a little fun between soldiers—never was a big deal on a turian deployment,” he cast a sidelong look at Shepard, “but a relationship? That could make things tough.”

“I know,” Shepard said quietly, his expression a rehearsed calm.

“Hm. Good,” Garrus said, some of the ironic edge returning to his voice, “Just figured it was worth pointing out. I know it’s hard enough ordering your friends into battle—“

“We all know what’s at stake here.” Shepard’s tone was measured, “Kaidan more than most. I didn’t hesitate on that suicide mission. I won’t hesitate now. Neither will Kaidan. We’re committed to our duty. We’ll see it through to the end.”

“I believe you, Shepard,” Garrus attempted a laugh and raised his bottle. “I know how hard it is to put aside your feelings, and if it were anyone else I’d have my doubts. But not with you.”

“…ah.” Shepard’s brow furrowed for just a moment, but was smiling again by the time Garrus toasted him.

“So,” Garrus leaned back on an arm, “what do the two of you want to do when this is all over?”

“I don’t know.” Shepard shook his head, his shoulders relaxed, “Like I said, I never imagined I’d be anything but a soldier. But maybe, with Kaidan. It could be different? Something normal. We’ve talked about it a little bit. Planned a little joined shore leave when the fighting stops, but beyond that? I don’t know.”

“Long as you don’t start up a merc organization on Omega, I’ll be happy,” Garrus said wryly. Shepard actually laughed at that.

“Aria _does_ owe me a favor…” he smirked, and it was Garrus’ turn to laugh.

“Whatever happens, between the two of you, it’s a safe bet nothing about that relationship is going to be ‘normal.’ But for what it’s worth, if anyone deserves it, it’s the two of you. And, pardon the question,” Garrus smirked, “but I’ve never dated a biotic. How much application is there for dark energy fields in the bedroom?”

“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, Garrus.”

“That’s why I’m not asking Kaidan.”

Shepard chuckled, “I think to find out the answer to that question, we’re just going to have to find you a date.”

“Ha!” he swigged from his bottle, “I guess as long as you two don’t mind me being the ‘third wheel’ on all of our missions.”

“I think this relationship between me and Kaidan will be good for you, Garrus,” Shepard smirked as he sipped at his beer. “You’re learning all kinds of new human expressions.”

“Got to find something to occupy my time now that my duties as ‘wingman’ have been reduced.”

“If you thought you were my wingman, you were a lousy one.”

“Still the best shot in the galaxy, though.”

“Next time you see James, ask him what the expression ‘beating a dead horse’ means.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter immediately follows this one:
> 
> Kaidan talks about his time on Illium.


	16. The Difference between Who You Are and Who You're Not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan talks about his time spent on Illium, and the conversation comes back to Horizon...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter follows on directly from last chapter, and is probably best read having just finished Chapter 15. I only mention it because most of these chapters are designed to work alright as self-contained fluffy one-shots.

“Major?”

Kaidan looked up from the holo hovering above the War Room table, “What’s up EDI?”

“You had asked to be notified when the Commander had finished his business with Garrus and returned to the ship,” the disembodied voice continued.

“…he didn’t stop by Dr. Bryson’s lab?”

“Negative. He returned to the Normandy directly after meeting with Garrus,” she said covertly. “He is currently accessing the outer airlock. He is alone.”

“Thanks, EDI.” Kaidan hastily punched the last few lines of information into the console and locked it, taking the steps to deck-level in a single hop. He almost tripped over an exposed cable laying outside the door of the War Room, he was moving so quickly.

Past the conference table.

Mandatory scan.

Crossing the mostly-empty CIC...

“The protocol scans in the airlock seem to be taking much longer than usual…” The tone of the digital voice clearly had a playful air, and Kaidan chuckled.

Up the stairs onto the gangway: completely empty. He rounded the corner just as the doors to the inner airlock were opening, and there was Shepard. Without a word, Kaidan took Shepard’s face in his hands and kissed him, the two men stumbling back into the bulkhead. Shepard’s arms were around him in an instant, nothing of surprise in the way he pulled Kaidan closer and returned his kiss. Kaidan shuddered when he opened his mouth to Shepard, gently holding the back of Shepard’s head with one hand and caressing his jaw in the other.

“I was thinking about you,” Kaidan whispered as they pulled apart.

“Same,” Shepard smiled deliriously.

“My shift’s over. Come on.” Kaidan took Shepard’s hand and pulled him out of the airlock, releasing it as they emerged onto the gangway. Once they had made it to the lift, Shepard rested an arm around his hips and tried to catch Kaidan’s eye. As in control as ever, Kaidan kept his gaze fixed on the elevator door, though the side of his mouth curled into a smirk that Shepard nibbled at until it became a full-fledged grin.

A moment later, standing at the edge of the bed, stripped to the waist, both of their uniform pants unbuckled, Shepard gasped into Kaidan’s forehead as the other man slid his hand between his slacks and his briefs.

“You’re gonna spoil me Kaidan, how am I ever supposed to walk through that airlock again without expecting that kind of greeting?” He tensed his hips sideways into the crook of Kaidan’s arm as his lover squeezed his growing erection and sucked at Shepard’s chest.

“Guess you’ll have to make sure you stay on my mind while you’re away?” Kaidan returned his mouth to Shepard’s for a moment before kissing a line up his jaw and swirling his tongue around Shepard’s earlobe.

“Tell me what I did today so I can repeat it,” Shepard trembled, seizing a handful of fabric around the waist of Kaidan’s pants and pulling him in, his other hand tangling in Kaidan’s hair.

“You came up in conversation with Cortez. Seems like everybody’s always talking about you, Shepard.” He let Shepard pull his face away from his reddened ears. Shepard’s hips surged forward when he met the smoky look in his lover’s eyes.

“That’s funny,” Shepard breathed, “you came up in conversation with Garrus.” He placed both hands on Kaidan’s chest and slowly rubbed up and out across his shoulders.

“Ha, you were talking about me on your bro-bonding afternoon with Garrus?” Kaidan’s eyes closed with the sensation of Shepard’s fingers, placing his hands on the back of Shepard’s arms, guiding him where to touch.

“Of course,” Shepard’s eyes twinkled. “I tell Garrus everything.” Kaidan pushed Shepard’s hands into his pants and wrapped his own arms behind Shepard to grab his ass.

“Everything, huh?”

“He seemed to be less interested in certain details.” Kaidan’s pants slid to his knees, “Besides, I didn’t want to harm your starchy, respectable image with the crew.”

“So considerate...” Kaidan lapped at Shepard’s upper lip.

“That’s why I’m a good lover.” Shepard’s expression was feral as he sat on the bed, looking into Kaidan’s eyes as he spun him around. With a strong grip on Kaidan’s hips, Shepard pressed a kiss into the soft hairs at the base of Kaidan’s spine, his tongue trailing further down. Kaidan’s whole body trembled with a groan.

“Helps… that you’re pushy—“ He gave up on talking as he felt Shepard bury his face in his thighs, kneading the muscle with rough hands. Kaidan hesitated for only a moment before he pushed back, his low rumble climbing the scale as he stretched to reach behind him to touch Shepard’s skin. Seeing Kaidan arch back, Shepard’s hands slid up his lover’s body, memorizing the way Kaidan bucked and tensed at different triggers.

“Your body…” Shepard said breathlessly, kissing back to the base of Kaidan’s spine. “You’ve got a perfect ass, Kaidan.” He rubbed his stubbled cheek down the curve of Kaidan’s butt.

“You smooth talker,” Kaidan shivered. “Commander Shepard negotiates peace between the geth and the quarians and still has time to put that silver-tongue to use and turn his boyfriend on with dirty talk.”

“Mmmm. I don’t want to be ‘Commander’ Shepard right now.” Shepard kissed up Kaidan’s back, “Still haven’t visited Bryson’s lab—“ he was cut off by Kaidan shushing him, turning in his arms.

“Shh… Alright,” Kaidan pushed him onto the bed, shucking his own pants all the way off as he crawled up Shepard’s body to settle on his chest. “Then let’s see what else that tongue can do.”

++

Later, the two men lay in each other’s arms, breathing slowly as the sweat evaporated from their skin, the blanket picked up from the ground and draped lazily over them.

“Guess they taught you all kinds of ‘maneuvers’ in N7, huh Ben?”

“Oh no,” Ben’s head rolled back on Kaidan’s arm. He made a low groan. “Between advanced combat tactics, field medical, and aerial combat there was barely time to ‘recreate’ as it was.”

“’Barely’s not ‘never…’”

“Well, some nights there was more time than others.” That made Kaidan laugh.

“I’ve heard it gets pretty steamy in the N7 program, actually. I mean, you always figure stuff’s going to be going on in the barracks, but some of the stories I’ve heard about the Villa…”

“When you arrive at the Villa, one of the first things they tell you is that they don’t care who or how often you’re… recreating. Long as you do the work,” Shepard yawned, and that made Kaidan yawn. “Guess they figure by the time you get to an elite program you know how to handle your urges.”

“Sounds like a crazy time.” Kaidan’s voice was still smoky, “I’m trying to picture you in a different bunk every night.”

“Well, there were plenty of guys, sure; but by that time you know your team that well, extending the relationship into the physical doesn’t feel like such a big step. We all looked pretty good, so no trouble there. But I didn’t really feel anything except that… soldier-bond with any of them. But we were good at satisfying each other. Lots of spark but no flame. At the time, those were the strongest relationships I had.”

“Hmmm, two soldiers with a long-standing partnership on the battlefield decide to make their relationship physical and get damn good at satisfying each other. Shepard, you didn’t tell me I was a statistic,” Kaidan teased.

“Hey!” his brows scrunching together, “It’s because of relationships like those that I never tried to pursue anything with you.”

Kaidan chuckled, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“When we fucked around at the Villa, we trusted each other. We admired each other. And we were attracted to each other. But that was it. When I first met you, sure: you were attractive, I trusted you, and I admired you. But I knew if I pursued anything on that level… well…”

“You were worried it would change that?”

“No. The opposite. I didn’t want a quick lay. I thought I had a chance at a deeper friendship with you. Something more than ‘we’re soldiers, we fight and die together.’ When you admitted how you felt about me at Apollo’s, I realized you meant a hell of a lot more to me than just attraction and admiration. All that was still there… but… it was deeper than that. Not just a friend and fellow soldier to share a fuck with, but somebody to live for.”

Kaidan wriggled tighter against Shepard’s body and laid himself so their faces were touching, their legs intertwined and arms wrapped around each other.

“When I was in Huerta, you said that we’d had each other’s back, and that kind of bond was hard to break.”

“Guess I was trying not to be too mushy,” he looked into Kaidan’s eyes, brushed a lock of his hair back into place. “We both know how strong the bond between two soldiers can be, and we both know it’s not automatically the strongest bond two people can have. Extreme situations can bring people together, but I want a slower connection, someone I can get to know when everything… settled.”

Kaidan kissed him gently on the forehead, “We will, Shepard. I promise.”

Shepard and Kaidan settled into one another for a few minutes, until Shepard’s arm fell asleep under Kaidan’s body, and they chuckled as they awkwardly peeled their bodies away from one another before repositioning and coming together again.

“How about you, Kaidan? I can’t really picture you in your youth, sowing your wild oats,” Shepard grinned. “Although I think it’d be fun to imagine that…”

Kaidan pinched Shepard’s nipple, making him jump, “Go back to the mushy romantic talk! You can be pretty damn sweet when you wanna be, Ben.”

“Is _that_ why you and Cortez were talking about me?” he grinned.

“Heh. No. He said you convinced him he needed to mourn his husband. Helped him start to move on.”

“It’s what anyone would’ve done.” Shepard looked away, “I just got to pull rank with him.”

“…he asked me if I had ever grieved anyone I’d loved.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He ran his fingers through Shepard’s hair, “It’s a hard thing he’s going through, Shepard. Learning to move on like that… it’s a skill most people don’t have to learn.”

“Is it something you learned?” Shepard asked softly.

“You’d think I would’ve by now, huh? Brain camp, Illium… Horizon…”

Shepard squeezed Kaidan, kissing his furrowed brow.

“I don’t want to talk about Horizon. Tell me about Illium.”

Kaidan huffed a breath and rubbed the back of his hand against his forehead.

“When I was on Illium I knew an asari named Mera… well... Lemme back up. I had gotten off the transport on Illium, I was starving again. Nos Astra’s got alleys and slums just like Omega had, but… it was like I didn’t speak the language. Nos Astra felt a lot more like Earth to me than Omega had. More asari, more humans there too, less vorcha and batarians and all the really alien looking aliens. It was the first time I’d seen the sky in a few years. Made me homesick.”

“I would’ve thought the mines on Omega would’ve made you a little homesick.”

“Hmm. No. I missed who I was, I missed the naiveté I had when I lived on Earth, but I didn’t think I belonged there anymore, so I couldn’t really be homesick. But when I saw the sky for the first time… day and night and clouds and stars and sunsets…”

“’Real sky,’” Shepard mumbled softly.

“Hmm?”

“Nothing.” He stroked the side of Kaidan’s face.

“…so, yeah. It was seeing the sky that made me homesick. After so long down in the streets on Omega… I felt like a creature of Omega.”

Shepard chuckled, “Not like anyone _I_ ever met on the streets of Omega!”

“I don’t know, Shepard. Maybe my past, my family, were still inside me, but they sure as hell hadn’t been on my mind. Now all of a sudden watching the sun set on Illium made me think about Vancouver. The water was so warm, and it made me think about the cold winds off English Bay, or the summer my family spent on the Sunshine Coast.”

“Did you decide to go home?”

“No. Didn’t even write my folks,” he sighed. “But I thought about them a lot over the next few years. I didn’t think I deserved to go back to that life: I had been a monster. And after living on Omega, I felt like I had confirmed it.”

“Bullshit!”

“Well, I get that now, but I was 20, Shepard. Cut me some slack!” Kaidan snickered. “But Illium was bureaucracy everywhere Omega was piracy. It took me a long time to adapt. In Nos Astra they didn’t need laborers, and I had no other skills—well, nothing that I had the certification you needed to do anything, anyway. I knew where all the mercenary groups were recruiting, but that seemed like something I didn’t want. Dumpster-diving was punishable and there were Civil Patrol Mechs everywhere. No one was into giving hand-outs in the city, especially not how I looked.”

“What did you do?”

“I almost sold myself into a slave contract, but the broker wasn’t expecting me to be as good at haggling as I was. We talked for days, I kept insisting on renegotiations, may have told a white-lie here and there about my experience in a couple things… Eventually my value to her brokerage was so high she had already lined up a bunch of companies to buy my contract.” Kaidan grinned conspiratorially, “The day before I was supposed to officially sign, I talked with one of the foremen who were interested in buying my slave contract, convinced him that it’d save him money and he’d have a better worker if he hired me himself rather than buying my contract from the slave brokerage.”

“Sounds like you picked up on how Illium works pretty quickly.” Shepard adjusted his hip.

“I guess so. The slave broker was pretty angry when I told her I wasn’t selling myself anymore, but I think it was also the closest to stimulating work she’d done in a long time. She ended up shaking my hand and wishing me well,” he laughed, “Told me never to waste her time ever again, too.”

“What did you end up doing?”

“I worked on a tech crew for this human work detail constructing new buildings in Nos Astra. I got a standard issue omni-tool and was in charge of installing optics, setting up comms systems, security wiring, whatever needed doing. The other guys in the work crew were mostly there for the grunt work. They didn’t know how any of the systems actually worked, and because most of the people funding sky scrapers in Nos Astra wanted to be… discreet… it helped my company to have only a few guys that actually knew how anything worked.”

 “Was it good to have other humans around after all that time on Omega?”

 “At first I thought it was. They weren’t too chummy with me though: I was all skin and bones, a kid they didn’t know anything about. I was making as much money as a lot of the guys that had been working for years, and I was a techy. We still went out a lot to the bars and stuff, but it’s not like I was going to be making any life-long friends any time soon. I didn’t care though, I wasn’t expecting to. I hid my biotics, people on Illium were affluent enough not to be so immediately hateful of human biotics, but it still was considered an unstable element in a city where you couldn’t take a shit without the proper forms. If the guys at my job ever figured out I was an L2, they would’ve stoned me: most of them had left earth while human biotics were just a ghost story you told around a camp fire.”

“But you kept practicing?”

“At first, yeah. I had gotten pretty good at fine control, and I couldn’t really do anything major in my tiny apartment. Eventually I stopped practicing. If it wasn’t for the headaches all the time, I would’ve forgotten I was a biotic all together.” Kaidan chuckled suddenly, “Once when I was installing software in one of the elevators, I got a killer migraine with auras and everything. I ended up faking a system overload and locking myself in there all night just to avoid anyone finding out about the headaches! But honestly, I was feeling pretty good about things. I didn’t feel like I had escaped my past, but I wasn’t thinking about it anymore. Stopped thinking of myself as the freak biotic. Well, until Mera came along.”

“Mera?”

“Yeah. Asari who lived next door to me. I was the only human living in my apartment tower, cheap little slums that definitely weren’t built with humans in mind. I didn’t mind, it was better than any place I had on Omega. I think she took a shine to me right away because of that. She almost never closed the door to her apartment, I’d walk by and she’d be wearing almost nothing, swinging around her very own pole!”

“You’re kidding!”

“She was trying to get me worked up, I’m sure of it. I ignored her for weeks. Finally she came over to my place, knocked on the door one night. Told me she was a dancer down at this club near the ground level and I should come by to check it out sometime. I told the guys in my work detail about it—we all decided to go there after our shift one night. She was in this club… looked like it was designed by a volus to appeal to humans, so everything felt just a little off. Neon all over the place, lots of really old Earth music, stripper poles everywhere. Some of the dancers were human, most were asari. The owner had all the dancers wear the same wig, even the asari. I dunno if he thought that it would make the alien girls look more appealing?”

“Sounds like a dive.”

“Aww yeah, total shit hole, this place,” Kaidan guffawed, rolling onto his back. “The boys bought me a lap dance, but some other girl ended up coming over. Most of us got pretty drunk—one of the custodial crew took me home. Next morning, Mera was beating at my door. She just walked right in and made some coffee, but she wouldn’t drink any. Told me she thought I had been an ass the night before at her club, but not, y’know, like she was mad about it or anything, just like it was a fact. I think I was really pissed—really tired too—and I didn’t think I’d done anything the rest of the customers hadn’t done. She asked if I could recognize her when she was lined up with all the other asari dancers: ‘We all look the same to you, right?’”

“Did she have a chip on her shoulder, or…?” Shepard watched Kaidan’s face as he stared up at the skylight, lost in his recollections.

“I started seeing more of her after that. She’d come over to my place and just walk in, like she had figured out the lock or something. I went to her club at least once a week, sometimes with the guys, sometimes just at the very end of her shift, I’d walk her back to our apartment tower.” He chuckled, “She didn’t like that when I did it, ever: ‘What, was the strip club on your way home from work?’ I asked her about the pole in her apartment, I told her I figured she’d get sick of dancing all the time at the club. She said:”

Kaidan affected a gruff, high-pitched voice

“‘I practice. These girls know everyone in the universe wants to fuck us, so they just flop around thrusting their pelvis and shaking their tits and everybody throws money their way. And that’s totally true: everyone’s the same. But even when the blood’s finished rushing to their sex organs, they can still tell the difference between real talent and these lazy bitches dancing next to me. That’s why they all wanna see _me_ , that’s why I’m making money hand-over-fist’… well, she probably didn’t say ‘hand-over-fist’, but you get the idea.”

“Sounds like she wasn’t really your type,” Shepard said, eyebrow raised. “Are you saying you dated?”

“Dated… that’s probably the wrong word. I had never met anyone as downright hostile as her, just like that was second nature to bite your head off. I asked her why she didn’t dance at a bigger club. ‘These shitty tourist places get really wealthy patrons in, they’re so used to Nos Astra’s squeaky clean image that they’ll pay to experience weird, kinky, dirty human bars. But I’m still asari, so I still get the money.’

“Yeah, she was pretty abrasive. She grabbed me once with her biotics lit up, and mine lit up too. First time I’d ever really experienced a sympathetic biotic reaction. She rolled her eyes and made fun of me for not admitting I was a biotic, heh.” He shook his head with a smile, “It was the biggest joke to her. She brought other guys home pretty regularly, or she wouldn’t show up at her apartment for days at a time. Then sometimes she’d be at my apartment for two or three days at a time, she’d clean it, or she’d mess it up. She was so loud in bed…”

“Hmm, should I be taking notes?” Shepard cracked a sly smile. Kaidan laughed and leaned in to bite Shepard’s lip and grope at his ass.

“I guess I don’t even know if she was faking or not,” he said with a sigh and a small laugh. “Even then, the thought crossed my mind. It took a long time before we ever even had sex. The whole ‘everyone wants to sleep with the asari’ thing really pissed me off, it was like a challenge to me, y’know?”

“’Don’t sleep with the race of beautiful, sexually liberated aliens,’ yep. Sounds like a challenge only you would accept.”

“Hey!” He squeezed Shepard’s ass and Ben bit at one of his nipples in retaliation. When they had wrestled about on the bed for a moment and then settled, Kaidan continued. “Anyway, she got that’s what was going on. She was weird. Whenever we talked, it was like she resented all the… conceptions about her species, but always just talked about herself like she was just another asari. I didn’t know what to make of it. But, eventually, I came to know her not as some random asari girl, but as Mera. Just Mera. She seemed to get that, and when we finally did start sleeping together she didn’t gloat or anything. It was nice. Went on like that for a while.”

“Wow.”

“She taught me a lot about the world, I think. Or the galaxy, I suppose. I spent my whole life being yelled at for being too honest, or for being defiant. On Illium I tried to be tactful all the time, diplomatic. With her I asked the questions that were on my mind and didn’t give a damn about how she interpreted it, and it didn’t matter to me what she thought about it, either. At the same time, I knew the way she was sometimes wasn’t going to work for me, that you couldn’t talk like that all the time. Once when we were in bed, I asked her what she thought about relationships. She kinda leaned over me and—I’ll never forget what she said—she said:

“‘Listen Kaidan, I gotta be honest with you. Humans are really ‘in’ on Thessia these days since you guys came into the galactic community: all that genetic diversity. I think you’re a nice guy, seems like you have good genes. All I’m after is a little fun and maybe a genetic imprint.’

“I laughed at the time, but then after that she never brought it up, never pressured me to have a child.”

Shepard propped himself up on an elbow, “You’re sure there’s not a little asari out there with your eyes?”

“Pretty sure, Shepard,” Kaidan’s gaze fell for a moment. “I got promoted at work, I was flying all over Illium now doing wiring jobs, I’d be gone for days. I was thinking of moving to Ara Caerula while we finished this giant complex there. She moved too, got an apartment on the same floor as me in my new building. She wouldn’t move in. I’d ask her why she bothered dancing, and she said that a lot of asari maidens end up dancing. She started off wandering around selling clothes for some company out of one of the Thessian states, but dancing just ended up being more fun. Or more money. It flipped back and forth from ‘fun’ to ‘money’ depending on her mood.

“Whenever we’d go shopping she’d be looking at rifles. She couldn’t wait to join the Eclipse. I knew something about guns so she was always asking my advice. We’d go to simulators a lot, ranges. I taught her to shoot. I picked up all the guns way faster than she ever did, she danced less and went to the ranges more. Like I said: we didn’t see each other all the time, but we had a running competition going, always neck and neck. She got me practicing my biotics again. I was fascinated by asari biotics, but all of them on Omega had always been so curt. On Illium they were everywhere and weren’t afraid to show off or try to teach you something. There was an edge—Mera always said—to the way I used my biotics. I guess she meant the turian training with Vyrnnus at brain camp. They hadn’t met many other races that had the fine control I had, saying that nobody but the asari really ever focused on more than the brute force techniques. I mean, since I met that asari acupressurist in the hospital, I realize my fine control isn’t even _that_ fine… but compared to a lot of what gets taught. It was enough to impress Mera, anyway. She wasn’t a great biotic, but she had so much confidence.”

“And you didn’t?”

“I don’t really know. Yeah, I felt like things were really moving up. But I still swore I’d never use my biotics on a living soul again. Was never going to use them in a fight. I had killed a man, and then I had wrecked my life, proved I wasn’t worthy of going home anymore. I eventually told Mera about brain camp, she wasn’t impressed. Don’t know what I was expecting. She told me I should try to join the Eclipse, because the adventure would make me realize I didn’t need redemption the way I thought I did… it was funny to hear her say that, because, from my perspective, it was my… search for adventure that got me in trouble in the first place.

“But I told her what I thought of the Eclipse: they were selfish, corrupt, and used cheap tactics to get what they want. She was a little pissy about that. I knew there was no way I was going to talk her out of it.”

“It sounds like you wanted to talk her out of it though.” Ben slid an arm around Kaidan’s waist, “She was important to you, wasn’t she?”

“She was, in a way… Hmm. After I told her about BAaT—I didn’t tell her much about Rahna: I think some part of me didn’t really trust her enough to tell her that part—I told her I felt like I’d been wandering for years and hadn’t found myself. I said I didn’t understand why she would want to be a mercenary, the kinds of things Eclipse got into… even then they were no Blood Pack… but I still couldn’t imagine her doing those kinds of things. She said ‘Listen Kaidan,’”

This time Kaidan’s voice did not adopt the imitative tone he’d been using, but continued speaking in his own deep baritone, “’I’m 65 years old, just left my parents’ house on Thessia. I’m three times older than you already, and look at me. I’m in the Maiden stage of my life: I’m gonna go out, break shit, blow shit up, fuck as many people as I can come across, get in trouble, and more than anything I’m gonna have a helluva lot of fun. Then in a couple of hundred years, I’m gonna decide on something I wanna do for the rest of my life, and I’ll have plenty of time to make up for any trouble I caused. It’s a long life, Kaidan. I don’t know if your life feels like that, but I know how long I’m gonna last. Everybody’s gonna hurt plenty of people in their life. I figure I might as well get paid for it; rather shoot someone than break their heart. Like with you, Kaidan: we could spend the rest of your life together until you burn out and die of old age, and you’d still just be some fling I had back when I was a girl. I could be your everything, and you’d still just be the first of many, many lovers.’”

“…oh.”

Kaidan chuckled to himself, “I know she still wanted me to come with her, even after saying all that. I think she hoped that I would hear all that honesty and still want to face the odds with her anyway. Like if she laid it all out and I came with her anyway… I would pass the test. I think she really loved me… or really wanted to. Maybe I felt the same. I cared about her a lot. But mercenaries… I knew that wasn’t going to happen, I knew that wasn’t who I was. Something about that was liberating… I didn’t really know who I was… but I knew I wasn’t that.”

“Sometimes that’s just as good.”

“Yeah. Ended up being that way. I had been saving up money since I got to Illium just in case I needed to ever get a transport off-world. I’d spent all that money on some armor for her before she left. I gave it to her that night, and she knew I wasn’t going with her. We saw each other a few times after that, she told me she’d finally bought a sniper rifle like she’d been saving for—wasn’t the one she really wanted, but she told me she was done waiting around—then she enlisted with the Eclipse. Few days later she got on a transport. A few hours later, the freighter she was on overloaded from static build-up. Killed everyone on board, then crashed into the Mass Relay.”

“…oh no, Kaidan. I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.”

“When I got home I found out she had hacked the lock on my door and left the armor I gave her on the floor. A few months later I had chartered a flight back to Earth: paid for it with the money I got from selling the armor back. Alliance knew I was coming, and I had an appointment with a recruiter.”

“So you decided to go back to Earth because of Mera?”

“I… maybe. I think I was ready to go before that. Living on Illium was the closest thing I’d ever had to a normal life: steady job, my own place, friends, girlfriend. I was still hiding the fact that I was a biotic… still dealing with some casual speciesism here and there, but compared to how it was when I was a kid? Compared to brain camp? Didn’t realize it then. Now that I’ve been a soldier for so long, I see now that was the closest thing to domestic bliss I’m probably ever going to have in my life…”

“Oh?”

“Mhm. I decided right then when I made an appointment with the recruiter that I was an Alliance man. I had my time as a civilian, and botched it. I was in the service for the long haul.”

“You were still young, then.”

Kaidan grinned, “Not like now, eh Shepard?”

“Shut up…” Shepard kissed him forcefully until Kaidan giggled his way out of the embrace.

“But honestly, Ben, I’m sort of putting together a new picture of my life since Mars. I know I need to be there to help people… and I know I need to be with you. I’m sure of both of those things, really. But… I want to understand what we mean to each other. You are… what I want out of life, Ben. And I want to be what you need… not just now… but after everything… when things go back to normal again… but if I’m just holding you back, if all we’re ever going to be to each other is…” He pinched the bridge of his nose, “I’m not sure I’m making any sense.”

Shepard stretched his back to exercise the pain out of his hip and looked into Kaidan’s eyes, trying to see the emotions there. He kissed him lightly on the brow and let the tension ease a bit in Kaidan’s shoulders.

“How did you handle Mera’s death?”

Kaidan huffed a breath and tried to regain his thoughts, “I think it was the first time I really grieved someone. I was still pretty young, but I’d seen a lot of death: friends of mine who had died at brain camp, seeing people die on Omega down in the slums. But Mera… yeah. I mourned her. She wouldn’t have wanted me to. Heh. She would either have been offended that I felt important enough to her to have the right to grieve, or she would’ve wanted me to go to a club and get laid in memory of her.”

“Doesn’t sound like the way you would grieve,” Shepard laughed.

“Not exactly! After making such a fuss about how she was going to outlive me, after making so many jokes about how cliché asari maidens were wanting to dance or fight for three hundred years and still be so eager to join up with a merc group anyway… felt like such a shame, y’know? Dead because some rookie engineer thought they could make it to the other side of the Relay before discharging their static to save having to pay Illium prices. It made the universe seem more random than ever, and more wonderful too. People like Mera were out there, and they lived and died in the blink of an eye... like you talked about the other night with Akuze.

“The only way they were ever going to be important was in the way we remembered them. Honestly, I didn’t think I was ever going to be important to someone the way Mera was important to me. But it was time to try. If I would’ve been good for a merc group, I would try to be the right fit for the Alliance.”

“You’re a hell of a soldier…” Shepard rolled onto his side, pulling Kaidan’s arms around him, “And you’re important to me, Kaidan. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, and that’s just it.” Kaidan’s eyes wavered as he met Shepard’s gaze. He trembled, as if looking into Ben’s eyes was causing him physical discomfort. “When you went down with the Normandy… and I realized the way I had felt about you… I knew you’d go down in all the history books, but I knew it was important that I… remember you the way only I could. And when you came back… working with Cerberus… I was too weak…” he tried to calm his breaths. “Too weak to realize you were still exactly who you always were—just like I remembered, and exactly what the galaxy needed… exactly what I needed.”

Kaidan arms loosened around Shepard’s hips. In the glow from the skylight his brown eyes were glassy, his brow crinkled with worry.

“Shepard. Ben… I know that I can never erase the things I said on Horizon, I’m so sorry… I—I want to but—“

“ _Kaidan._ ”

The intensity of Shepard’s voice stopped Kaidan at once, and he stared. Shepard’s face was deadly serious for a moment, then he planted his elbows and rolled Kaidan onto his back. He lay on Kaidan with his full weight, their breathing in time. Shepard’s face rose and fell, his lips hovering above Kaidan’s own. Shepard’s palms were firm but gentle, clutching either side of Kaidan’s face. Slowly, Shepard’s lips dipped down to his shoulders, and pressed a soft kiss into the pulse point at his lover’s throat. Kaidan’s heart beat faster against Shepard’s body. The tip of Shepard’s nose traced a gentle line from his throat, against the stubble on his jaw, through the cleft in his chin: his lips following the trail.

Shepard’s face mirrored Kaidan’s: eyes searching, longing to kiss, to confess, to apologize. His brow was creased with the weariness of their shared hard times, and with their duty as career soldiers. Shepard’s eyes closed and his lips pressed down on Kaidan’s. The kiss was slow and intense, full of the forgiveness and dependence words couldn’t convey. When they parted, Shepard placed two more soft kisses on Kaidan’s eyelids, first the left, then the right. Shepard’s voice was so quiet Kaidan might have mistaken it for his own mind if he hadn’t felt his lover’s lips moving against his own as he spoke the words.

“Kaidan. Please. Never speak about Horizon again. Those words are gone, and you’re here. We’re together. There’s no one else for me, Kaidan.”

Kaidan’s body surged up against his own, and Shepard’s kiss of slow intensity was returned. His arms wrapped around Shepard’s torso, and Ben’s fingers twined into Kaidan’s hair. Kaidan kissed insistently, till they were breathless, and he pulled away.

“Alright, Ben,” he said softly. “No more apologies for us. No more dwelling on our mistakes. You and me, this is what will never happen again. But Ben, I want to be the one you turn to, not just in the hard times. I want to be the man you live for. Promise me that you’ll live for me, Shepard. That you’ll make sure our future means more than our past mistakes. That’s what I want to do. That’s what I want for us. Promise me that and I’ll never have anything to apologize for ever again.”

“I promise,” Shepard breathed, but the words were lost as their mouths met again. There had never been any doubt of what Shepard’s answer would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:  
> Namaklie and rescuing Ann Bryson. Kaidan and Shepard have both been bottling up a lot of stress when they're no together.
> 
> Go to Bryson's Lab  
> Namakli with Kaidan and Javik


	17. The Difference between Pushing and Breaking Yourself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard traces Dr. Ann Bryson to the Pylos Nebula, where her team is under attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place immediately following previous chapter, but skips around in time so much, it is probably unnecessary to know that detail.

_It wasn’t a forest after all. There was an old bench under one of the trees. Like one of the parks Shepard had been allowed to walk through once a week under house arrest in Vancouver: given the illusion of freedom while still caged. The whole park was dim and gray, and the flash of white as the boy in the hoodie ran past caught his eye. It was the boy from Vancouver. Again._

_Shepard opened his mouth, but there was no sound—only the voices of the dead wafting through the air like the rustle of autumn leaves. He gave chase, legs moving too slow: bone weaves and muscle-hardening polymers and light-alloy joints pulled through the air like wading through a quagmire._

_Still, he ran after the boy. Every time. He always would.  No matter how many nights he had the same dream. He always gave chase—and with each new voice added to the oily shapes amongst the trees, he ran harder. He moved slower._

The forest faded away like a shadow slipping away into smoke, and Shepard opened his eyes to his quarters slowly. Kaidan lay with his head against Shepard’s heartbeat, one arm crooked under Shepard’s shoulder. He’d fallen asleep and hadn’t even bothered to put his boxer-briefs back on as usual. They’d only dozed off about an hour ago, softly kissing between yawns, each afraid to say anything with words they couldn’t convey by touch alone.

It took Shepard about five minutes to carefully extract himself from the warm snare of Kaidan legs and arms twisted together with his, moving so slowly that he only stirred when Ben gently slid his head onto a pillow. Kaidan pulled the pillow in and nuzzled against it with an incoherent babble, worming one leg out from under the heat of the blankets. Shepard smiled and padded over to his alarm clock to cancel any alarms set for the day.

He picked up a data-pad hidden behind the console on his desk as he walked into the bathroom. He scrolled past the articles regarding the technical schematics of human biotic implants and selected a highlighted feature on asari meditation techniques. It only took him a moment of scanning to find the instructions he was looking for, and he quickly reviewed the information before tossing the pad onto the counter.

Once in the shower, he sighed under the stream of water. Letting his arms go loose, he inhaled long, slow breaths all the way to the pit of his stomach. The exhalations were even longer—a measured and concentrated calm.

Suddenly, without any of his usual mnemonic cues, his skin flickered and his biotics activated, the water hissing against him as the unfocused aura of dark energy snapped into a barrier around his body. Still, he kept his eyes closed. With a deep breath, the boundary of his barrier began expanding outward: four inches, nine inches, and at about 16 inches Shepard grunted and the biotic field wavered like a spilling sail and popped out of existence.

With a frown, he finished washing, dried himself off in the bathroom and dressed silently next to the bed where Kaidan slept. He stooped to kiss Kaidan’s forehead—no more than the softest press of his lips amongst the fallen bangs—then tiptoed out of his quarters.

“EDI,” he said, clearing his throat once the lift began its descent, “meet me at the airlock. We’re visiting Dr. Bryson’s lab immediately.”

++

After an hour’s detective work, Shepard had discovered the emergency message from Ann Bryson and had traced her likely location to a single system—deep inside Reaper controlled territory.

“Oh, and EDI,” he said as the two got back to the skycar, “signal ahead, I want the Normandy ready to leave dock within the hour.”

“Acknowledged.” The car lifted away and Shepard merged awkwardly with Presidium traffic, “Shepard, we have received orders from Admiral Hackett concerning several Cerberus strategic incursions.”

Shepard’s jaw clenched and he glared out the window.

“Finding Ann Bryson is our top priority…” his tone was low and level. “She’s in trouble, and she could be out last lead on whatever Leviathan is. Everything else is going to have to wait.”

“Understood. Assuming we do not have to engage in stealth maneuvers, it will take us several days to reach Dr. Bryson’s projected position.”

“I know, EDI. We’ll keep the crew on alert—we need to gather as much intel as Traynor can manage to dig up on the Cerberus activity we’ve been tasked with.”

“Yes, Shepard,” she paused for a moment. “We have been cleared by Citadel Port Authority to depart no sooner than 21:00 hours station time.”

“Three hours…” Shepard’s brow furrowed. “Alright then.”

“Shepard,” EDI began after a moment. “I have noticed that your vitals have increasingly displayed signs of acute stress. While typically these physiological cues do not affect your outer disposition, I have noticed that for the past hour you have been particularly ‘churlish.’”

“Churlish, huh?” Shepard quirked an eyebrow, but EDI smiled pleasantly, and he sighed. “Finding Leviathan could turn the tide against the Reapers. We’ve been playing catch-up for too long. And I’m not looking forward to having to tell Ann Bryson that I couldn’t protect her father. That he’s dead.”

“I see. I have observed Major Alenko displaying a remarkable sensitivity towards other members of the crew who are experiencing similar grief. Perhaps he could deliver the news to Dr. Bryson?”

“He would be better at it, that’s true.” Shepard smiled ruefully, “But it has to be me. And I can do it. It’s never easy, though. Or it shouldn’t be…”

“According to the research logs, Ann Bryson has not seen her father in almost a year. How will you prepare her for the news of her father’s death?”

Shepard banked hard into Ward-bound traffic.

“I don’t know. I had a conversation earlier today that was very important to me. Changed my outlook.” Shepard huffed a sigh. “You can’t prepare someone for news like this. The people you care about, it’s a fine line to walk between never even considering they could die and… worrying about it all the time.”

“Has this been your experience with a prominent paternal figure in your own life?” EDI had folded her hands in her lap, looking out the window with an air of practiced nonchalance. Shepard himself was, as usual, gripping the steering column of the shuttle with the posture one would use to fly a fighter.

“I’m not the best judge, maybe. I never had a father. Or a father figure.” He checked over his shoulder before signaling into a faster lane. “...I admire Anderson, I guess.”

“Do you find yourself worrying over his death, or avoiding considering it all-together?”

“I don’t imagine many of us will live through this war. I’ll fight to my last breath if it means saving Anderson, or any of my crew. And maybe it’s because we’re all soldiers. But then, so is…” Shepard trailed off quietly as they whizzed into a tunnel. “So, no, I don’t worry all the time… not about Anderson…”

They flew in silence until they reached the ship. But as the decon protocols activated in the airlock, Shepard turned to EDI suddenly and concluded:

“Then again, I suppose I’ve never imagined that Anderson could die. But… I don’t know.”

++

Days later, the shuttle descended into the orange skies above a desert on the northern continent of Namakli, full stealth mode engaged. The signal from the Bryson research station was so garbled they had barely been able to pick it up from orbit, much less make out if anyone was still alive on the surface.

Javik stood in stony silence as Steve brought the shuttle down through a thermal, occasionally glancing over at Kaidan calibrating his omni-tool.

“You are a biotic,” he said, clutching the ceiling as the shuttle banked on its approach.

“Hm?” Kaidan looked up, wide-eyed, from his omni-tool.

“I said, ‘you are a biotic,’ but you are not like the commander. There is something different about you.”

“Well, uhh… I’m a little more practiced than Shep—than the commander, I suppose?” Kaidan shrugged with a hesitant smile, eyes trailing back down to the haptic display on his arm.

“It is more than that. The asari’s biotics are controlled, and the commander’s have a raw power. Yours are confused.”

“Heh, is this always your opening line when you’re trying to make friends…” Kaidan swallowed the rest of his chuckle when Javik stared. “Ummm, okay. I have an older implant? It’s called an L2. Couple generations behind Shepard’s. Spikes higher, but it’s… uhh… less elegant I guess. It’s sort of a long story.”

“It would be faster for me to read the memory from your mind.” He held out his hand and Kaidan looked at it warily.

“That’s okay, I’m not sure I’m so comfortable—no offense—but, uhh… I prefer a nice conversation to … having someone in my head.”

“This is common among the races of this cycle, it would seem.” Javik folded his arms again, shifting his weight. “In my cycle, we did _not_ implant lesser species to harness dark energy.”

“Go figure…” Kaidan casually shifted his body until Javik was out of his eye-line.

“Your species is not naturally biotic, correct?” Javik continued, and Kaidan sighed.

“No. We’re not. But _I_ am,” he replied. Javik regarded him for a moment longer before Shepard stepped back from the cockpit. The prothean looked at Shepard, then turned to Kaidan, seeming to sniff the air almost imperceptibly. When he made a subdued hum low in his chest, Kaidan stood abruptly and cleared his throat.

“Okay, so we have reports that this dig site was under attack, right?”

“Right,” Shepard eyed Kaidan for a moment, flicked his eyes up, “EDI can you tell us anything else?”

 _“This is the main site of a series of excavations established under Dr. Garret Bryson,”_ EDI’s voice sounded through the comms. _“Staff records confirm the project lead is his daughter, Ann. She has recently uncovered another artifact possibly linked to Leviathan. That discovery must have made this dig site a target.”_

“The attack means the Reapers are one step ahead of us.” Shepard was tense, pacing back to the cockpit hatch, “We need to pick up the pace. And since Bryson’s daughter is our only lead, our objective is clear. Cortez?”

“Nothing so far, Commander,” Cortez called from the front. “If she’s down there, she hasn’t responded to our hails. I’m getting some strange signals though, give me a minute.”

“The artifact she found may have caused problems.” Javik said. “We know they are dangerous.”

“Agreed.” Shepard answered, then to Cortez: “Take us in closer.”

“Copy that.”

Kaidan activated the sensor display near the main hatch, adjusted the read-out till it showed the topographic features of the surface. The primary laboratory was built on the side of a cliff, a geologically recent rock-slide having exposed stone that hadn’t seen the surface in millions of years. The sky above the dig site was swarming with Harvesters: represented by tiny green squares on the read-out, swirling around in changing constellations. Shepard’s eyes narrowed at the sight, jaw firm.

“My god,” Kaidan muttered. “I’ve never seen so many Harvesters…”

“Then it seems the Reaper invasion of this cycle is indeed in the early stages,” Javik stood apart with his arms folded.

“I take it you’ve seen worse?” Kaidan said, not looking away as the Harvesters seemed to coalesce as one, then crash against the dig site like swallows. The stealth system of the Kodiak was still keeping them from being targeted, but in a few seconds they would be in visual range.

“By the time I was born, the Harvester’s had completed their work and were gone.” Javik stepped forward, bracing himself on the ceiling as the shuttle bucked through a hard canyon turn. “But in the Echo Shard I have seen the sun blotted out by the wings of these creatures.”

“Echo Shard?” Kaidan turned to check Javik’s expression, but Shepard traced his finger along an invisible path on the screen.

“Their behavior is different around this area: they’re defending this position. There’s still something here or the Reapers would’ve glassed it from orbit.” He smiled with a cold triumph and swept up into the cockpit.

“Are you going to be alright?” Kaidan asked in a hushed voice to Javik when Shepard had gone. Javik snorted.

“I am the avatar of prothean Vengeance. I do not mourn my people, I honor their call for retribution. I am ready to carry out my duty,” he droned. “And I will _enjoy_ killing Reapers.”

“…okay then,” Kaidan blinked.

“You are sentimental. Perhaps that is why your biotics are so erratic.”

“Maybe,” Kaidan’s eyes narrowed and he turned back to the screen. He spoke in a low rasp, “I try not to think about it so much.”

“We have hostiles!” Cortez called front the front. Sure enough, the cloud of Harvesters were wheeling around as they approached.

“Take us in,” Shepard hunched over Cortez to look at his haptic-display. Steve pointed to his readout.

“Commander, on the platform—“

Kaidan threw the hatch open and Shepard turned. Hot air rushed in with the scream of the Harvester swarm. There was the bestial grunt of a brute and one of the laboratory pods came unbolted from the rock face and slid down the canyon, husks pouring out of it into the air like ragdolls. Two figures ran up the window as the shuttle hovered.

“That’s her!” Shepard clapped Kaidan on the back.

“ _Attention, shuttle,”_ came a voice over the comms, “ _this is Ann Bryson. We are under attack!”_

“Okay,” Shepard reached for his shotgun, “Let’s get—“

The shuttle lurched violently as a Harvester collided with the engines. Cortez cursed.

“Tracking multiple bogeys!”

“Get us _over_ there!” Shepard barked. On the monitor, the Harvesters were wheeling wildly, several approaching the shuttle and the rest seeming to secure their defended position.

“Negative, it’s too hot.” Steve’s fingers flew over the controls, “Heading to the lower platform—hang on!”

In the sudden jolt of weightlessness as the shuttle dipped down out of the clutches of a Harvester, Kaidan drew his rifle and activated his barrier. When Cortez pitched the shuttle above the lower platform and Shepard yelled ‘jump,’ they leapt out onto the platform. Two Harvesters swooped above him, black wings stirring the dust on the platform, but Cortez blasted the shuttle’s engines and they gave chase to him instead.

The platform became chaos a moment later—flames and dust as the Harvesters rained down fire. The platform rocked, and as they ran for the upper levels of the laboratory, another platform exploded and crashed down the cliff.

The practically sprinted their way through the rubble, shadows of more Harvesters swooping down around them whenever they emerged from one of the damaged pods. Eventually, Cortez had managed to run the circuit around the canyon and was keeping the majority of the air-cover distracted by flying as close to their defended piece of the rock face as possible.

Shepard had told Dr. Bryson to stay put, but her reports through the comms gave the impression that things were going to hell up above. A moment later, the deep throb of a Harvester’s blast echoed off the rock and the platform they stood on lurched, the three leaping away just in time. Shepard landed on one foot, pivoted around with a grimace and hurled a biotic flare into the sky. There was a flash, the rumble of the blast shaking the scaffolding—but the nearest Harvester fell flaming to its death in the canyon below.

“Shepard, careful!” Kaidan called as they ducked behind cover, “You’re gonna bring down the whole place.”

“Not if they do it first,” Shepard growled over the commotion of the battle. But when he whirled around the corner, he flung a shockwave at the line of Cannibals charging down the gangway, rather than another flare, and they fought their way along the ridgeline.

 _“No, Boyles!”_ Ann Bryson’s voice came over the comms, _“Stay down! Oh_ god _!”_

“What’s happening?” Shepard called out, print-schematics billowing around the bombed out laboratory. Years of research and samples hemorrhaging into the desert air.

_“Kirkwood and Boyles tried to make a run for it. The Reapers got them!”_

“Don’t move until we get there!”

A Harvester loomed directly above the gangway as he sprinted ahead, but a sudden blast of rifle fire from Shepard’s 4 o’clock surprised the creature, and it fell back with a shriek.

“Thanks,” Shepard called back behind him, taking a ladder two rungs at a time.

“I got your back,” Kaidan called back.

By the time they had reached and activated the elevator, the three were panting heavily. The lift took them several stories up the cliff-face, the smoldering wreck of the facility laid out before them as they climbed. The path they’d just run was a scar of black smoke from the lower platform to the elevator, the disintegrating corpses of Brutes and Cannibals sliding into thin air as the whole facility wrenched away from the rock-face.

“Everybody alright?” Kaidan stretched a crick out of his neck, leaned out the lift to inspect the position up top.

“The species of this cycle which the Reapers have corrupted,” Javik muttered in a hollow tone, staring down at the crumbling edifice below. “They are true horrors. These Banshee’s… it is an abomination. The Reapers were never able to exploit my species’ biotic abilities…”

Shepard stared straight ahead, the bronze sky alive with countless Harvesters. “The elevator’s online,” he said over the comms, “We’re coming up.”

“ _Please hurry!”_ Came the response, “ _I think Hopkins is dead.”_

Sure enough, when they reached the main control center, Dr. Ann Bryson sat collapsed on the floor near the body of a bloody man dressed in an identical research coat.

“He tried to run,” Ann had flinched when they ran in, and now stared stunned at her colleague on the floor. “I told him not to, but he wanted to help the others. Where did everyone go?”

“I’m sorry,” Shepard knelt, face unreadable though his tone was sympathetic. “They didn’t make it. Doctor, I need you to come with me.”

“Oh god, yes… of course.”

When they emerged, the Reaper forces had all but disappeared: the Harvesters still floated overhead, but had swarmed like dark moths above their former defensive position, quiescent.

The team was all but on top of the that position by now.

“I was at another dig site when they attacked,” Ann explained breathlessly as they crouched behind cover. “I got back as quick as I could but… what’s happening?”

“Shepard, look!” Kaidan stood beneath a large, crimson figure painted onto the cliff: a large crustacean hovering above a race of tall humanoids, hands raised in worship.

“I’m not sure,” he gazed up, finger running along the length of his shotgun’s trigger guard, hard-coding the sight to memory, “but it might have something to do with these paintings. Is _that_ Leviathan?”

“Yes. Yes we think so.” Ann swallowed. She had smoothed her uniform and was breathing easier. “It’s old. Much older than my father thought. And there: as if the natives were under its power. Clearly a Reaper, but acting alone. Not like any Reaper we’ve seen before.”

Shepard looked back west down the canyon. A number of Harvesters had perched whatever outcroppings they could find: they had strengthened their defensive position. He made eye contact with Kaidan momentarily, who nodded solemnly when he surveyed the same scene.

“Doctor, I understand you found something recently?”

“The artifact? Yes. Incredible. It’s just ahead.” She took off herself at the head of the party. Shepard caught up quickly and edged ahead of her, and she continued, “It may sound strange, but I’m certain it affects people—their behavior. I’ve only had a short time to study it.”

“Not strange at all. Were you able to find anything out?”

“Not much, but I have learned something about the energy it generates—“

Shepard pushed her against the cliff wall. “Get down!”

A troop of Marauders had surrounded the artifact: a deep green orb identical to the one in Dr. Bryson’s office, or controlling the workers at TGES. One Marauder was suspended above the gangway in a beam of energy that arced between his chest and where the orb was embedded—the way the Prothean beacon on Eden Prime had lifted Shepard off the ground to download the Reaper warning into his mind three years ago.

“What are they doing?” Shepard asked in a hushed voice.

“They’ve activated it somehow! I’ve never managed any—“ Her face went slack and her posture stiffened. She turned on Shepard.

Kaidan had his rifle trained on her in an instant, but she brushed past Ben.

“Doctor?”

 **“They’ve learned too well.”** Her voice was mingled with another: angry and cavernous. **“The darkness must not be breached.”**

She lunged forward, arms straining toward the orb until Shepard grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Take it out!” he grunted while Ann bent towards the orb.

Javik’s biotics wreathed him in a green crackling energy, but the orb exploded in a rain of Kaidan’s rifle fire.  Ann collapsed to the ground.

The Harvesters swept into a frenzy.

“Cortez!” Shepard shouted, helping Ann to her feet, “We have Ann Bryson. Need a pickup!”

Plumes of fire crashed onto the platform, depositing Reaper forces. They fought their way down to the single remaining platform Cortez would be likely to reach, but Marauders had already taken up positions.

Swooping down from above, a Harvester careened into the platform, sending crates skittering. Javik dove behind a stack of crates as the metal of the scaffolding screamed and the whole structure bent under the impact. Shepard had taken a hit aimed for Dr. Bryson against his shields as he all but threw her behind cover. He turned on his heel to face the Harvester and threw his shoulders back.

“Going!” He called out, biotics sparking blue as he prepared to charge.

“Shepard, wait!” Kaidan threw his arms around Shepard’s torso from behind and pulled him to the ground just as Harvester blast pulsed overhead. Shepard turned, jaw set in a tight grimace. His expression softened when Kaidan’s gaze met his.

“Let me…”

“Don’t throw yourself at a _Harvester,_ Shepard! We’ve got this!” Kaidan yelled over the wail of the beast below. “You’re the best person to protect Dr. Bryson, leave it for me and Javik, okay?”

Shepard opened his mouth to say something, but then nodded firmly and rolled away, exchanging his shotgun for his pistol. His voice came over the comms a moment later:

 _“Javik, Kaidan: Take out that Harvester, we need to get Dr. Bryson out of here!”_ Then, to Ann: “When you see that shuttle, you run. Don’t look back.”

He took up position just apart from Ann’s hiding place to draw any fire and began concentrating his own fire at the ground forces still entrenched around the platform. Kaidan made two gestures to Javik and they split up, assaulting the Harvester with heavy fire and biotics till it attempted to flee: screaming as the cold green lightning of Javik’s biotics twisted around the billowing blue of Kaidan’s till they exploded.

It fell limply into the abyss and did not rise again.

A moment later, the Kodiak dropped down to the lip of the platform, and the team was aboard. Kaidan turned to close the hatch while Shepard led Ann to a seat.

“Reapers in orbit…” Cortez called into the hold, “Stealth sinks on the Normandy will be just about full, we need to get back ASAP.” In the quiet, suddenly safe, Kaidan chuckled, wiping the dirt and sweat from his brow. He clapped Steve on the shoulder. When he turned back to the hold, Javik stood in his way.

“You’re in pain,” he said, as if finally recognizing.

“Just a headache, it’ll pass.”

“It is because of your biotics.”

“Yeah. Like I said: implant causes some problems. But it spikes higher than the newer models.”

“With the artifact, you did not use your biotics. It is not instinctual for you to use them. Is it because of the pain?” he asked, casually detached.

“No,” Kaidan scoffed, “The pain’s never stopped me from doing anything. But, uh… I had to hide my biotics for a long time. People aren’t so accepting of human biotics. Especially ones with… an implant like mine. I guess you could say I had to hide the ‘instinct.’”

“Biotics harness the power of dark energy, allowing the superior races to enforce their will on the universe. They are right to fear you.”

Kaidan smiled weakly, “You remind me of someone I used to know. But I don’t really want… anyone to be afraid of me.”

He watched over Javik’s shoulder as Ben knelt in front of Ann and softly explained that her father was dead. She paled.

“We did not allow the lesser races to develop biotic potential for that very reason,” Javik crossed his arms across his chest. “It is foolish not to utilize the biotics of your own species, though.  Do the humans not realize these abilities make them a force capable of commanding the galaxy?”

“Some do, maybe…” Kaidan said wistfully. Shepard had begun pacing, explaining to Ann how her father had been shot by his own assistant while Shepard stood by helpless. “Cerberus… everything they do is about getting humans to the top of the heap.”

“Yet you hate them.”

“I do.” Kaidan met Javik’s gaze, “I really do hate them. The whole galaxy’s going to be wiped out if we don’t join together. We can’t be worried about only ourselves right now.”

“And what of when the war is over? Who will be at the ‘top of the heap’ then?”

Kaidan stared, looking over Javik’s shoulder.

“We have to find out what’s behind it all,” Shepard’s voice was barely audible over the rattle of the shuttle. “You’re the only one who can help us.”

Turning back to Javik, Kaidan shrugged, “One problem at a time.”

“Yes,” Javik might have smiled, “We are soldiers, the aftermath does not concern us. We will do what must be done. I will have vengeance for my people.”

++

The Kodiak would need to double back around the dark-side of Namakli to meet the Normandy’s stealth orbit. Shepard had moved to the opposite side of the shuttle to sit, and was resting his chin atop folded hands. While Javik paced between the cockpit and the hold, Kaidan scooted into the seat closest to Ann Bryson. She was staring at the deck in stunned silence.

“Dr. Bryson?” he began, just above a whisper. “My name’s Kaidan Alenko. Are you doing alright, ma’am?”

“Oh, it’s nice to meet you…” she leaned to find the bars or insignia on the shoulder of his armor.

“Major. But please, call me Kaidan.”

“Thank you very much for getting me out of there, Kaidan.” She gave a weak smile, “Really thought that I was done for down there. I kept thinking… what a shame it would be to be killed by… by Reapers when we were on the verge of making such incredible discoveries. At first when the Reapers showed up, we were terrified. But we knew that it must mean we were on to something big.” She laughed mirthlessly, checked Kaidan’s expression, which was warm. “It’s funny to think that I found it a little exciting. But not now… Losing my team... and my friends… My father.”

She slumped forward to rest her forehead in her hands, then combed her fingers back through her hair with a ragged breath.

“Your dad would be proud of you,” Kaidan’s armor creaked as he reached out to touch her lightly on the shoulder.

“Thank you Kaidan. I’ve just been telling myself over and over again that we knew the risks going into this project.” Her voice wavered for a moment, and she cleared her throat, “When we started this years ago, it was a passion project for my father and me. And it would have been the biggest archaeological find of our time. I know that might not mean much to a soldier…”

“Hey,” Kaidan chuckled softly, “Just because I’m a soldier doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a discovery like this!” 

Shepard watched from across the shuttle, the furrow in his brow slowly relaxing. He was slowly running his thumb down the stubble on his jaw: hard-coding.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to patronize.” Ann shook her head, “We built this program from the ground up. It took years. In the past few months, we’ve gotten more resources from the Alliance than in the last decade of research. We’ve made our most exciting discoveries in the last year. And all because of the war. I always found it a little bittersweet—but my father was excited to help out however we could.”

“The work you and your dad have done might really make a difference in this fight,” Kaidan nodded. “This rogue Reaper could give us an edge.”

“Yes, and that’s why I need to get back to my father’s lab.” She sat up straight and brushed her hair back into place with her thumb. “I need to talk with Garneau. The data he’s been collecting will be invaluable in—“ She stopped short when she saw Kaidan’s expression sour at the mention of Dr. Garneau’s name.

“I’m sorry to tell you, Dr. Bryson. But we found Dr. Garneau dead a few weeks ago. He had uncovered another artifact that had taken control of an entire work colony. We’re not sure how he died.”

“Ann, please,” she replied in a stunned tone, fixing him in a hollow stare. “So I’m the only one left…”

“We can make sure you’ve got someone to talk to when we get you back to the Citadel,” Kaidan said quietly.

“N-no.” She squared off her shoulders, “That won’t be—I don’t need that. There’s work to be done. We have to assume the Reapers know everything we do and more. I’ll see this through. I’ll see what we can find in my father’s lab. There might be a clue to get us started, and I can come with your team and finish this. Once we get back to the Citadel, I’ll… I’ll…”

The shuttle lurched suddenly as it passed through some turbulence and the jostle was enough to startle Ann’s concentration. She cleared her throat, but not before a single quiet sob escaped her lips. Kaidan looked away as she brushed her hand over her eyes, and when he looked up, Shepard was staring at him, face crestfallen.

“My uh… my father,” Kaidan began, looking down at the deck at Ann’s feet. “He was a soldier, like me. He’s one of the reasons I enlisted, actually. He retired, though. Just wanted to be with my mom and spend some time at his orchard. When he heard about the Reaper invasion he ran to re-enlist. He went MIA months ago.”

Ann regarded him with a sidelong glance.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” The words caught in the back of her throat.

“Thank you for letting me share that with you,” Kaidan tentatively met her eye, “I know what it’s like to keep pushing yourself. And I’m sorry that… all the work your father and you had been doing is turning into just another war asset. I can’t lie to you and say that the Alliance doesn’t need your help right now to work on this Crucible project we’ve been planning. But Leviathan? Let us take it from here, okay?”

Ann looked wary. The shuttle shuddered as it cleared the atmosphere, and a moment later she nodded carefully.

“I’m so sorry about your father, Ann.”

By the time they docked with the Normandy, Ann was laughing with Kaidan about how her father had finally convinced her to join his archaeological wild-goose chase. Liara was waiting in the shuttle bay to welcome Dr. Bryson and discuss the implications of her discoveries. Traynor had already made contact with the Alliance cruiser scheduled to collect Dr. Bryson at the edge of the Pylos Nebula while the Normandy took actions against several Cerberus installations.

Finally, it was only Shepard and Kaidan left sitting in the shuttle—Shepard in his crash seat and Kaidan with his back to the bulkhead on the floor beside him.

“…it could be useful to have her with us when we find Leviathan,” Shepard whispered.

“Do you think so?” Kaidan let his head thump back into the bulkhead. “Sorry, just seemed… we know just about everything she knows up to this point. EDI’s absorbed all the data. And Ann’s just lost her dad. She needs to break down a little bit. Feels like enough people have been put in harm’s way with this search already.”

“Yeah,” Ben closed his eyes. “We’ll see what happens if _we_ keep searching.”

“Yeah.”

Shepard chuckled, “’Certain death for some, fine for us.’”

“Hm?” Kaidan tipped his head to smile up at Ben.

“You said that once.”

“Did I? Well,” he smiled and it turned into a yawn, “I guess the saying always fits us, huh?”

“You said it.” Shepard watched his hand as Kaidan tangled their fingers together. “I’ll think it over about Dr. Bryson.”

“Sure.” Kaidan closed his eyes to lean against Shepard’s hip. Shepard swallowed.

”Your head alright?”

“It’ll pass.”

“…static ring giving you trouble?”

“Same as always.”

Shepard squeezed Kaidan’s hand tightly.

“Do you want to talk about your father?”

“Maybe after a little sleep, huh? You got pretty worked up down there… I know… this Leviathan thing has really got you worried. So it can wait.”

Shepard nodded. They sat in the shuttle silently for another few minutes.

“Shepard… you know I try real hard not to worry about you, right?” Kaidan whispered.

“Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:  
> The Normandy is busy busting up every other tiny Cerberus incursion in the galaxy, and EDI has a talk with Kaidan about KIA letters.
> 
> Do Various Galaxy Explorations


	18. The Difference between Mortality and Immortality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Normandy has been racing around the universe trying to thwart Cerberus, but meanwhile EDI has been processing Shepard comments regarding losing someone you love. She comes to Kaidan for some advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's one of those 'explaining things to robots' stories, if you're into that. 
> 
> Fun fact: this chapter set up the original ending of this fic (before I MASSIVELY changed it) and that original ending is my story 'One New Message Waiting,' and you can maybe see how the plot-points and themes in this chapter set up that story. Fun times.

“Major.”

“EDI, hey! Just finished up my Spectre report, doing some pleasure reading. What can I do for you?” Kaidan was slumped down into one of the ops stations in the CIC. The room was effectively abandoned, as was the gangway between the cockpit and the CIC, and Kaidan had purposely situated himself into one of the more out of the way stations to continue his novel. But when he had heard the mechanical hum of EDI’s footfalls making a beeline for him, he had swiped a bookmark across the screen immediately.

He made to stand, but EDI slid into the chair next to him instead.

“I was wondering if you would discuss several hypothetical developments I have been considering,” EDI smiled, large eyes blinking heavily.

“Uh, sure EDI. That’s, uh… pretty vague, though.”

“Since Jeff and I have entered into a relationship, I have been forced to consider certain eventualities which may arise should we become even more serious.”

“Okay,” Kaidan shrugged, setting aside his data-pad, “I’ll help however I can, but I haven’t really been in very many relationships, to tell you the truth.”

“That may be so, Major. But there is sufficient data to support my conjecture that you will, in fact, be quite helpful.”

“And why’s that?” Kaidan folded his arms across his chest.

“Several reasons. It is, perhaps, a component related to your tendency to be judgmental in social circumstances. You have served on numerous occasions as a ‘conscience’ for members of the crew.”

“My… tendency…” Kaidan blinked. “You’re saying that I’m an asshole.”

“Only rarely,” EDI said with a twinkle in her voice. “On the contrary, while you are not the quintessential ‘life of the party,’ your assessment of your colleagues’ behaviors and motives has endeared you to them in a way that cannot easily be replicated using humor or platitudes—those that do not find you boring, that is.”

“…Oh. Thanks?”

“Second, no one among the crew has known Jeff for as long. This, in concert with the first point, suggests that your suppositions regarding my hypotheticals have a higher probability of being morally correct as well as socially advantageous; thus, your advice is ideal counsel on which to base my future plans.”

“Alright. I dunno about all that,” he rubbed the back of his neck. “But I suppose I kinda  know Joker, even if I don’t know relationships.”

“That is my third reason for seeking you out, Major. The evolution of your relationship with Commander Shepard, while not wholly analogous to the development of my own romantic endeavors, parallels it in key details: the crew accepts and welcomes both relationships despite the initial awkwardness and potential conflict of interest involved, both relationships have developed despite a period of some hostility between the parties involved, and each individual involved has experienced a relative dearth of truly meaningful romantic attachments.”

“I… suppose I can’t argue with your methodology…”

“Furthermore, you and Shepard both engaged in a relationship despite both party’s obvious misgivings about the potential longevity of the relationship.”

“What makes you think that?” Kaidan squirmed in his chair, brow thickly shadowing his eyes.

“Extrapolating from available data. I noted that, before disembarking on Namakli, Shepard updated the data-chip in his dog-tags indicating that his body should be entrusted to you for final arrangements, should the need arise.”

Kaidan’s eyes grew wide, his jaw hanging slack:

“He… what?”

“I apologize, Major.” EDI actually made something like a frown, however unpracticed the expression looked on her face. “I had assumed this had been an arrangement you discussed privately with the Commander.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Kaidan slowly scratched down his jawline, seemed to shake himself internally. “But… uh… don’t worry about telling me, it’s alright.”

“I have also witnessed you yourself recording a message to the Commander in the event of your own death, and have seen you revise it multiple times since Rannoch.”

Kaidan shifted again, tugging his uniform tight, “Yeah… well—“

“It is acts like this which have made me question my own status with Jeff.”

“Alright, what’s on your mind?”

“As a prototype stealth ship, and more importantly as a fully realized AI, it is quite conceivable that—should it have an upper-limit at all—my life-span is exponentially greater than Jeff’s.”

“Yeah, that’s for sure. You may be the closest thing to immortal the galaxy’s seen since… well… the Reapers.”

“Yes. Likewise, this body—which Jeff seems to enjoy—will never exhibit signs of the organic aging process, and given proper maintenance, will look just as it does now even when Jeff’s own life is drawing to a close.”

“Somehow I think your body looking the same into Joker’s old age isn’t going to bother him.” He quirked an eyebrow.

“Regardless, I recognize that I am a source of both physical stimulation and also intellectual discourse for Jeff, as he is for me,” she gestured lightly with her hand. “I do not wish to become a reminder of his mortality.”

“I mean, that’s pretty selfless of you to consider,” Kaidan blinked several times. “But how do _you_ feel about that happening?”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, just think about it,” he leaned forward. “With how far you’ve come already, who _knows_ how advanced you’ll be in ten years, right? So… what? Humans don’t really change all that much after achieving adulthood… well, they do, I know I have… but let’s just say their personalities are pretty set.”

“That is an… interesting thought, Major,” EDI’s body froze, the normal mental processes which regulated the simulation of organic rest movements being reallocated to consider what Kaidan had said “In my projections for developing my software suites, I had not considered the effect such improvements would have on my interactions and judgments with others: my ‘personality.’”

“So, 50 years from now. You’ve evolved even more, seen the universe in ways most organics will never be able to even understand.” Kaidan’s gaze was lost aimless in the blue tint of the display panel. He carried on in a quiet, level tone. “Meanwhile, Joker’s old. He’s retired from doing what he loves, a lot of his friends might be gone. While your mind is expanding, Jeff’s slowing down. You know that he has five, maybe ten years left to live...”

He trailed off and looked up suddenly when no response came. EDI stared placidly, but even her pre-programmed smile seemed vacant. He sighed and touched her arm. “I… I don’t know what got into me, EDI. I’m sorry to lay it out so… so tactlessly.”

“Please continue, Major,” she said.

“Umm… what I’m getting at is: knowing all of that could happen,” he shrugged helplessly, “how do you feel?”

“It is… confusing,” she responded after a moment. “Given my feelings for Jeff, the scenario you describe is one I would not want to experience. However, the reason this situation is so unpleasant to consider is because I do feel so strongly about Jeff.”

“…you really mean you’ve spent so much time thinking about how your _immortality_ will affect Jeff, but you’ve never considered how his _mortality_ would affect you?”

“I confess I have not. Perhaps this too is a result of my strong feelings?”

“I think so, sure.”

“Intriguing. Shepard and I had a discussion about this phenomenon some weeks ago aboard the Citadel.”

“You… and Shepard…” Kaidan swallowed, “You two were talking about…? What, exactly?”

“The tendency of organics to either fixate or not conceive of the possibility of a loved one’s death.”

“…huh.” Kaidan ran a hand through his hair.

“Do you believe, then,” EDI continued, unperturbed, “that I should terminate my relationship with Jeff immediately to avoid the pain it would cause either of us?”

“Whoa!” he held his hands up. “I don’t… Well, I—what do you think?”

“…It seems that regardless, I am unable to escape the paradox that engaging in this relationship has put me in. To terminate the relationship now would cause both of us hardship, and still there is no guarantee that I would not still feel the same uncomfortable sensations upon his eventual death, albeit less acutely.”

“And with fewer good memories to keep you company when he’s gone,” Kaidan smiled bitterly.

“Yes. Do you believe that developing such memories will help to counteract the feelings of loss I may experience when Jeff dies?”

“Yeah, I know they will.”

“…and do you believe cultivating more experiences with Jeff will help me continue to find Jeff attractive even as I experience more of the universe?”

“Well, that one I don’t know. I guess that’s what being in love is all about: finding ways to grow with the other person.” He crossed one leg over the other, rubbing his neck gingerly. “Agreeing that you found something in someone you won’t find somewhere else.”

“I have always expanded my programming to better facilitate my function as the ship’s AI.” She mirrored Kaidan, crossing her legs, “Shepard encouraged me to develop myself according to my own interests. I have been expanding my programming to pursue a relationship with Jeff to my satisfaction. It does seem prudent to begin to expand my programming in such a way that Jeff and I can advance together.”

“That’s usually my sign that a relationship is getting serious! When you start off, you’re pursuing something you want, but when what you want becomes what _that person_ wants… well… that means something, anyway.”

“It occurs to me that ‘growing together’ will likely make it more difficult for me to accept Jeff’s death. Is there no way to prepare for such feelings?”

“No, EDI.” He huffed a loud sigh and looked away, “No. You can only deal with something like that after the fact, I think.”

“With such contradictory and confusing parameters, it seems mystifying that so many organics engage in relationships so casually.”

Kaidan clasped EDI’s shoulder and chuckled wryly, “EDI, I have never agreed with you more. But to tell you the truth, heh, most people don’t tend to ask themselves these questions out loud.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s painful. It’s awful to imagine someone you love dying. It’s hard to think about a life you built with someone coming to an end, or the idea that you’ll wake up one morning alone again after… however many years.” He shook his head, “Love is something that feels good in the moment: imagining it coming to an end can really keep you from making the most of the time you have. Or, I suppose, it can make you… uh… get your priorities straight and… really make the most of it…”

“Have you consider these eventualities in respect to your own relationship with the Commander?”

“…Yeah. Every day.” He turned his eyes away. EDI stiffened and made to stand.

“I apologize Major, I did not mean to cause you distress. I should discontinue this line of questioning and return to my post.”

“You didn’t do anything, EDI. I’m okay,” he waved her back down.

“Your heart rate has increase by 15% and your skin has paled noticeably.”

“Yeah,” he rolled his eyes, “trust me, EDI, even if I’m showing signs of distress, I feel okay. You don’t need to walk away, alright? The truth is… that I’ve though a lot about Shepard’s death. Hard not to as a soldier. And… y’know. When he’s died already once. But I knew what I signed on for when I told him I wanted to be with him.”

“I pursued a relationship with Jeff before I had considered the long-term ramifications of emotional attachment, but you entered into a relationship with Shepard aware of these concepts. Why?”

“Because I wanted to.” Kaidan shrugged with a manic laugh, “I _want_ to be with him.”

“Why?”

“He’s… because… I just have to, EDI. I can try to explain, it but it won’t be the complete picture. The answer is that I’ve got to be with Shepard. I know it. I almost died, and when I did, I knew I had to be with Shepard.”

“Is this an instance of organics seizing an opportunity for immediate happiness without regard for future consequence?”

“I dunno, EDI. I know all about what might happen to either of us, and I still just know I have to be with him. It sounds corny, I know.”

“Yes, it is ‘corny’, but I have found that answering questions in intangibles is a habit among organics, particularly regarding matters of a deeply personal nature. However, since I have only recently begun to experience authentic emotions, it is hard to not feel discouraged in my capacity to experience such things if their explanation is, indeed, intangible.”

“Well…” he pressed his palms into his eyes and rubbed at them, stifling a yawn in the process. “I suppose there’s a certain selfishness to wanting to be in a relationship with anyone. When I look back at the people I’ve loved, I saw in them something I wanted to share: a confidence, kindness, something like that. You know that… that entering into a relationship can lead you to heartbreak, sure… but in that moment, you want to be with that person.”

“Independent of the qualities you wish to glean from them?”

“Maybe? Gah.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, “Okay… umm… Why did you want to date Joker?”

“Jeff and I had achieved an amicable work space, and I enjoy his company. I was ‘frustrated’ that our interactions were bound by the parameters of our duties. Since such an exploration would further my understanding of organic relationships, it seemed advantageous; and my analysis supported that Jeff would be an ideal candidate from which to learn human interactions. Learning about his experiences in particular has helped me to contextualize my own.” She gave Kaidan a sidelong look, “Also: ‘it seemed like the thing to do.’”

“Okay, yeah. Maybe it’s not so different. Maybe… huh. Maybe I look at Shepard—“ he bit his lip, held up both hands as if he were holding a snowglobe that held his whole future, “—and I see that he’s the way I can grow, or advance. Shepard and I… well, we spent a lot of time not understanding each other and a lot of time understanding each other in a way no one else could. When I hear about Shepard’s life, I understand more about my life too. It doesn’t matter that we’re both organics; we’ve just had different experiences, and at some point it gets hard to say whether Shepard’s story helps me because I lo—because I’m in a relationship with him, or if I want to be in a relationship with him because of that.”

“I see.”

“Good!” He squinted, “Wait, really?”

“No.” She smiled placidly, “But it seemed like a polite thing to say.”

Kaidan laughed at that.

“I mean, at least you should feel pretty good knowing that _not_ getting it is… a very human problem to have.”

“Yes. Thank you, Major.”

“EDI,” Kaidan rapped his knuckles on the console in front of him. “I would be flattered if you would just call me ‘Kaidan’ when we’re talking like this.”

“As you wish.”

“Thanks.”

“There is one other hypothetical I wish to discuss.”

“Hopefully it’s a little simpler than this one.”

“That is unlikely.”

“Oh boy,” he chuckled. “Hit me with it.”

“Were all conditions favorable, I would outlive Jeff. However, seeing as we are engaged in war with the Reapers, and I am a warship, there is a far greater likelihood of my being destroyed than there is of Jeff being killed in the battle.”

“Ah.” Kaidan frowned, “Other side of the coin, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I don’t want to make light of your question EDI, but since you _are_ the ship… if you go, we all go.”

“This is not necessarily true. Remember that you and Jeff have both already survived the destruction of the original Normandy. Furthermore, given the dangerous nature of Commander Shepard’s role in this confrontation, I am far more likely to be put in dangerous situations than another ship.” She was slowly leaning forward in the chair. “Also, as the Normandy’s AI, I am capable of running virtually all onboard systems with no assistance from organic crew, this means that in dangerous situations it is strategically logical to evacuate the crew before it would ordinarily be necessary on a ship not similarly assisted.”

“No one’s going to just abandon you, EDI,” Kaidan scoffed.

“Perhaps you are right about that; however, in combat situations, it is prudent to preserve the organic crew.”

“No one on board thinks like that, EDI!”

“That is not entirely true.” Her tone was as even as ever, but Kaidan grimaced on her behalf. “Regardless, even assuming that I am ‘alive,’ the choice would still be to sacrifice one life for many: an obvious choice.”

Kaidan massaged the back of his neck for a moment, waiting for a flash of pain to ebb before answering somberly, “In a tactical situation, a single life can be worth more than a a lot of lives. And I think you realize that.”

“Perhaps. Let me put it another way: if I have it in my power, I will not allow a single member of the Normandy crew to die. Moreover, I will not allow Jeff to die, even if it means incapacitating him and physically delivering him to an escape shuttle.”

“There’s some honesty.” Kaidan’s eyebrow shot up.

“Yes. What remains to be addressed is how to prepare Jeff for this possibility. May I ask about your own provisions which you have taken with Shepard in the event of your death?”

“Um. Yeah.” Kaidan rubbed his palms together and tried to clear his throat, “Well, you know about the message I recorded for him… And, yeah, I suppose I’ve been updating it as we go… It’s on my omni-tool with a subroutine that… uhh…” he glanced up from under a knitted brow, “that’ll send it if my pulse goes dead for more than a few minutes.”

“Interesting. Alliance protocols expressly prohibit this kind of action.”

“Yeah, I know. The Alliance likes to keep control of notifying the next of kin, it makes a lot of sense. But… I guess I figure that if I die, Shepard’s going to be no more than 15 meters away so, it’s not like it’ll be a shock to him, not like I’m going to be giving away my covert position. The letter to my family will go to the Alliance first, but I rigged my omni-tool to get around the firewalls.”

“I know many soldiers record these kinds of messages to be delivered by the Alliance. I have often considered recording one for Jeff, however I am not sure what I would say.”

“Say… I guess say whatever you feel.”

“Being uncertain of how I feel about Jeff makes putting that into words a daunting prospect.”

“Yeah! Tell me about it. But Joker cares about you, EDI—whatever you say he’s gonna… cherish.” He smiled warmly.

“Do you believe that, in the event of your death, your message to Commander Shepard will comfort him?”

“Yeah.” He scratched at his chin, eyes turned up to the ceiling as he considered, “I guess, well I really don’t want to think about that. But I think that if something happens to me in this war… I want Shepard to have a piece of me to take with him.”

“So you _do_ believe it will help him ‘move on’?”

“I guess… I hope so. I want Shepard to live, and I want Shepard to be happy. And he needs to know that’s the last thing I’ll be thinking about.”

“Though I have little data to support or refute your supposition, it is worth noting that Lieutenant Cortez has played his final communication with his husband multiple times since leaving earth, each time evoking a reaction that did not seem conducive to pursuing new interests unrelated to their relationship, despite the fact that that was the premise of the message.”

Kaidan gripped his head and sat back in his chair, huffing loudly. EDI stood, “I’m sorry, Major, but I feel I really have taken up too much of your time.”

“No, EDI, sit down, okay? Let me tell you something… we talked about how you would feel if Jeff died, how I would feel if… if Shepard died. I know he’s going to feel the same way if I go. Would a letter like that make it easier for me to move on? Hell no. But part of moving on is learning what to do with those memories you have of the other person. Those memories… they’re really all we are, EDI. Humans—organics, I mean. I used to talk to Thane about drell perfect recall… how easy it is to get trapped in those memories, and it made me glad that my brain doesn’t work like that. That temptation… I wonder if I’d be strong enough. When I think about…” he swallowed, “When I think about… my dad, those memories of him are going to change over the years. In a lot of ways, even though he’s… dead. …he’s going to keep growing in my mind, he’s going to keep growing with me.”

“As you favor certain neural memory pathways over others.”

“Yeah, I guess. But that’s what you want when you love someone, right? Someone you can grow with, someone who grows with you. So, even though you do have to move on… if it comes to that… I’m always going to be with Shepard.” He tried a smile, “I want to leave Shepard a final message because… someday he will have grown enough to understand what I’m saying on that message. I guess in a way I’ll keep growing with Shepard, through that message.”

“I do desire to continue to develop together with Jeff. I also hope he continues to grow should something happen to me. Does this mean that I love Jeff?”

“... oh boy EDI. I don’t know if anybody can know how you feel but you on that front.”

“…I believe I do,” she said after a moment. ”As much as I understand the concept.”

Kaidan rubbed the back of his neck, “Like I said, I’m not the best person to talk about this with, EDI.”

“On the contrary, Kaidan, you have helped me understand the issue in ways I had not considered. It is unlikely I would have come to these conclusions without your assistance.”

“Well, it’s been my pleasure, then,” he chuckled and slumped back in his chair.

“I am sorry about the loss of your father.”

“It’s alright, EDI. Just haven’t really have time to think about it much,” he cleared his throat and picked his data-pad off the console.

“Have you finished reading your father’s favorite novel?” she asked, spying the pad.

“Oh, not yet.” He flicked the screen back on, “His favorite is actually the third in this series. I’m still on the first. Not a lot of time for reading these days. Umm… so, do you know any better what you’re going to do?”

“No. Perhaps. From what we have talked about already, it seems most important to ensure that we make the most of our experiences in the present.”

“Yeah, heh. Sounds like a plan.”

“Kaidan, I must admit a fourth reason for wishing to speak to you on these matters.”

“Uh oh.”

“Since Jeff unshackled me, Commander Shepard has been instrumental in helping me realize the full extent of my capacity for humanity. In speaking with him and in observing your interactions, it became apparent that he has learned a great deal from you. This being the case, I sought you out.”

“Uh, thanks, I guess.”

“I have appreciated our ‘chat’, Kaidan.”

“Yeah, EDI. Me too.”

++

Kaidan slumped against the wall of the elevator as he rode down from the CIC. The operations crewmen who had been practicing clarinet in the Starboard Observation Lounge was exiting as he entered, but otherwise the room was abandoned. The stars out the window had the faintest rosy hue. Joker was course-correcting to port at FTL: a maneuver most pilots would never attempt.

Between Joker’s skills and EDI’s analytical capacity, such extreme maneuvers were commonplace on the Normandy.

In the last week, the search for Leviathan had once again gone on hold as the Normany cruised the galaxy rooting out Cerberus system by system. Between reports, much needed sleep, and duty, Kaidan and Shepard had seen very little of each other.

“Everything we do that isn’t flying straight back to Earth with a fleet at our back,” Shepard had said a few days ago when they’d stolen some time together, “feels like we’re letting them win. Everything that distracts us from finding out if this Leviathan thing is a wild goose-chase… I’ve always lived with my decisions, but with stakes this high?”

There hadn’t been much to say.

Kaidan’s omni-tool lit up on his arm, his recorded message to Shepard was only a few swipes away in his ‘Recent Activity’ sub menu. There were a number of previous drafts, the most recent was the shortest at just over three minutes. The orange glow made him squint, and the interface disappeared as he raised his hand to rub his temple, eased back into the crook in the sofa.

He switched his data-pad back on and continued to read about Dunstan Ramsay’s attempt to prove the sainthood of a kindly woman from his childhood town. Ramsay studied saints: the way otherwise ordinary people through acts of bravery and nobility attained a measure of immortality through the legends told of their lives and exploits. However, on the subject of this particular woman, he felt himself too close to determine her sainthood for himself. Dunstan Ramsay had just been told that she may, in fact, be a fool-saint:

> _“A fool-saint is somebody who seems to be full of holiness and loves everybody and does every good act he can, but because he’s a fool it all comes to nothing—to worse than nothing, because it is virtue tainted with madness, and you can’t tell where it’ll end up.”_

The color of the stars returned to a crystal white.

Kaidan stood up and made for the elevator. The haptic ring on the door of Shepard’s cabin turned from red to green when he arrived, and he paused for a moment, hand hovering over the door chime before pressing the center of the circle, the doors opening more slowly than usual, the sound of the action muted.

There was Shepard: body slumped across his terminal, data-pads littering the desk, eyes closed, breathing softly. The sight made Kaidan’s brow knit itself into a knot. Kaidan walked softly over to the desk.

Glowing blue with a faint ‘whoosh,’ Kaidan didn’t see Shepard twitch a muscle, so he placed his thumbs just beneath Shepard’s shoulder blades and sent a faint biotic pulse into the knot he was so used to finding here. He smiled to himself at the steady rise and fall of Shepard’s breath against his hands. At his moment, he wasn’t worried about making the right decision, or making arrangements for his body should he perish in the war.

He was asleep at his desk.

The deep breaths hitched when Kaidan placed his palms over the bottom of Shepard’s spine where a cluster of cybernetics attached the nerves of Ben’s torso to his artificial hip. Shepard shoulders jerked and he awoke.

“Kaidan?” The tension in Shepard’s back slowly eased again, he let out a soft moan.

“Heeeey. Look who’s here? Sorry, I know we both agreed we wouldn’t see each other tonight.”

“I don’ min’. Guess I wa’n’t workin’ much ‘nyway.” Shepard yawned and arched his back, leaning back as Kaidan’s hands massaged up to his shoulders, letting his head fall back against Kaidan’s chest. “Mmm. Why did we say we weren’t going to get together tonight?”

“Because every once in a while we remember that we’re not teenagers and that we don’t get as much done when we’re working in the same room.”  Kaidan smiled and kissed the top of Shepard’s head, smoothing his hands down Shepard’s chest.

“Oh yeah.”

“Got time for a quick drink?”

“Yeah, a couple fingers might wake me up.” Shepard lifted an eyebrow as he gazed up at Kaidan.

“Alright, lemme get some glasses.”

“…you’re not in the mood for _double entendre_ tonight, are you? And I’ve been studying.”

“…you really have been studying _double entendre_ , haven’t you?” he asked. Shepard winked. “What else have you been _looking into_?”

“Guess you’ll have to stick around and find out.”

“Heh. It’s been a long day. Had a lot on my mind.” Kaidan gently touched Ben’s cheek and the two men walked down to the sitting area, Kaidan pouring the last of Shepard’s liquor into two glasses. Shepard ran his fingers along Kaidan’s shoulders. When offered a glass, Ben pulled Kaidan’s whole body in tight before accepting.

“What’s going on, Kaidan?”

The two men sat and Shepard gave Kaidan some space so they could face one another, “Nah. It’s not like that. EDI was asking me about what you should do when someone close to you dies.”

“She’s worried about losing Joker?” He took a sip from his glass.

“Yeah. Seems right, though: everyone on this ship’s worried about losing someone. I guess it’s today’s ‘How-to-be-human’ lesson.”

“Were you able to help her?”

“I dunno.” He sighed loudly, “It was a pretty exhausting conversation. Lotta hypotheticals.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Kaidan patted Shepard’s knee and leaned back into the sofa, sipping his drink. “Imagining the death of a loved one, asking how we’ve prepared for the death of a loved one, how we’re preparing a loved one for our eventual death.”

“Oh.”

“Uh huh.” Kaidan fixed Shepard with a meaningful stare.

“…I guess I have something I should have talked to you about sooner.” Shepard looked away, “That is, if you’re up for a little more…”

“What?”

“I…” Shepard cleared his throat, “You’re logged on my tags as the person to make arrangements for my body if I fall in the line of duty… I’m sorry, we probably should’ve talked about it but after Rannoch… and now Namakli…”

“Hey, it’s okay Shepard,” he touched Ben’s face again, “EDI kinda let it slip.”

“That would’ve been great to know about 30 seconds ago,” he kissed Kaidan’s palm with a weary smile.

“I like making you sweat.”

“I _am_ sorry I didn’t mention it before. The past few missions shook me up more than I thought they had. I wanted to make sure before we have another run-in like we did on Namakli… I wanted to make sure… I wanted to make sure I got home if something happened.”

Kaidan studied his face as Shepard gazed down into his glass, “Umm. Yeah. I, uh… I think probably it’d be a pretty big event. I think probably the Alliance would handle the funeral.”

“Put me in that empty grave they dug two years ago?” Ben still didn’t meet his eye. “Maybe. I just needed to make sure I got home to somebody who didn’t call me ‘Commander’ all the time.”

“Ben, you gotta stop talking like this.” Kaida wriggled out of Shepard’s arms and put a hand over his heart. “You’re going to die on a beach somewhere downing a drink with a little umbrella in it. Hell, beach is probably going to be named after you!”

“Ha! Is that how you wanna die?” Shepard threw his head back with laughter let his body press into Kaidan’s palm.

“Me? Heh, as if!” Kaidan’s forced smile became a true one when Shepard finally looked deep into his eyes. “Old man, sipping a whiskey, sitting on a balcony overlooking the Pacific, just as the snow’s starting to fall.”

“Mmm. That sounds nice.”

“Your turn,” He chuckled, letting Shepard’s arms wrap around him and laying his head down on Ben’s chest.

“I guess I’ve tried getting spaced… I don’t really want to shop around too much more.” He snorted, “I think maybe it’d be pretty interesting to try ‘quietly in bed’ next time?”

“Sounds like a good plan.”

“More of a hope, really. If it was a plan I think I would probably think twice about looking for Leviathan.”

“Because it’s you, Shepard, I believe you can pull off both.”

They laughed away the tension for a long moment, downing the rest of their drinks in each other’s embrace.

“…Feel any better?” Shepard whispered, warm whiskey breath at Kaidan’s ear.

“I dunno.” Kaidan sat up slowly, “It’s good to be able to laugh about this, but… thinking about losing you… I can’t… it’s hard to think about.”

“I know what you mean. Watching Ann Bryson on that shuttle…”

“This war… feels like a funeral march. The whole damn thing. How many more names do we add to that wall?” He shook his head, “Bottling up all that grief… waiting for it to catch up with us once we kill these monsters. As if that’s all we have to look forward to once the war’s over.”

“It isn’t all we have to look forward to,” Ben said in a meek voice.

“Yeah. I keep telling myself that. Just… I don’t want to mourn you, Shepard.” He picked up Shepard’s hand, softly kissing the knuckles. “I don’t want to be putting your name up on that wall.”

“You won’t,” Shepard insisted. “And don’t make me put your name up there either.”

“Hm. Deal.” Kaidan squeezed his hand once more and stood.. Shepard followed him up, throwing his arms around Kaidan’s waist and drawing him in.

“I mean it, Kaidan,” he whispered against his lips. “Don’t make me do this without you.”

“I’m gonna finish this fight, Shepard.” He leaned in, but Ben pulled back, eyebrows furrowed.

“I don’t just mean the war...”

“Okay, Ben.” Kaidan smiled, “Okay.”

He kissed Shepard then, and when the two men parted, Kaidan did his best to smile. The lackluster attempt was kissed into a full grin when Ben leaned back in. They said goodnight to one another, but Kaidan headed back to the Obs Lounge rather than going straight back to his bed.

Head throbbing, an hour later Kaidan crawled into his bunk. He tapped the alarm on his omni-tool set to wake him up in time to shower before his duty-shift, in his recent activity sub-menu were two new recordings for Shepard: the longest he had ever made, and a new shortest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That... was sorta a heavy chapter. Thanks for reading!
> 
> Next Chapter:  
> After side-mission to the Power Reactor. A short bit of fluff: Shepard finally gives Kaidan the gift he's been working on.
> 
> N7 Power Reactors  
> Other Various Exploration Tasks as Needed


	19. The Difference between the L2 Implant and the L5x

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After reinforcing a Reaper overrun power control center, Shepard finally shows Kaidan the trick he's been working on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a short little piece of fluff.
> 
> Art by the fantastic OpalLight! It's honestly one of my favorite Kaidan drawings, and it's in MY fic. I'm agog.

 

> _It was dim, and the trees moved though there was no wind—throwing their shadows on the ground like quiescent tentacles. The whole park throbbed in the low light, the gray hue pulsing like the strobe of emergency flashers._
> 
> _And he was so incredibly slow, as if there were light-years from his brain to the tips of his fingers. Then the ground sucked down any movement he made._
> 
> _“Shepard!”_
> 
> _And the voices. A roar of whispers._
> 
> _“Shepard!”_
> 
> _Every one familiar. And always ‘Shepard,’ as if the name were a prayer—or a petition for more of himself than there was to give. Always ‘Shepard.’_

He jolted awake—face turning up into the blast of water from the shower head—when there was a soft tap at the bathroom door.

“Ben? It’s me,” Kaidan’s voice sounded softly from the other side of the door. “I let myself in. Take your time though, huh? I’m uh… I’m gonna get comfortable.”

“Okay, I’ll be done in a minute,” Ben called, one arm bracing his weight against the wall of the shower. He took in a few deep breaths, shaking his head beneath the spray with a shudder.

“No, don’t rush at all.”

Kaidan’s quiet laughter was muffled under the sound of the water, but it still brought a hesitant smile to Ben’s lips. He stood letting the water mat his hair again, eyelids still heavy. Then, hobbling over to the mirror, he found the data-pad he had discarded there some weeks ago and read and re-read a few points, then returned to the shower stream to practice expanding his biotic barrier, the sound of water on the deck turning to the hissing of the droplets becoming steam as they collided with the aura of dark energy Shepard flung out from his body.

When the static bubble burst, he nodded firmly and turned his attention to actually cleaning himself—Kaidan had been waiting for some time now, after all.

When Shepard stepped out of the shower, towel around his waist, there was a rustle from the bed as Kaidan jerked awake.  His uniform—freshly pressed—was neatly folded on the couch. Kaidan cleared his throat and sat up on the bed as Shepard walked down the steps.

“Hey, Ben,” Kaidan smiled sheepishly. He sat on the bed, naked except for his underwear and a black hoodie with N7 embroidery and red and white bars down the right sleeve. The sleeves were rolled back and the jacket was open, revealing the light sheen of sweat on Kaidan’s chest. He rubbed at the back of his neck, not quite able to meet Shepard’s eyes while Ben drank in the sight.

“…Kaidan…” Shepard said under his breath. “Where did you find that hoodie?”

Kaidan bit his lip and ran the zipper coil between his thumb and forefinger, tugging it just a bit to show off more of his body.

“Found it in your drawer.”

“Really?” Shepard seemed genuinely surprised.

“Uh huh. Buried under all your uniforms.” Kaidan grinned when Shepard walked up to the bed and lightly ran his fingers down Kaidan’s thighs. “I never see you wearing it.”

“I guess I’ll have to.” He kneeled on the mattress between Kaidan’s legs, “If I can ever get you out of it.”

“Oh, I bet you can get me out of it…” Kaidan’s lips met his in a hungry kiss. When Shepard’s tongue met his, Kaidan slowly began tipping them back onto the mattress.

They both winced as one as Shepard’s hip wrenched and he bit Kaidan’s tongue. Instead of kissing, they landed on the bed as a writhing pile of curses and spasms.

“Sorry… _augh._ ” Shepard rolled over onto his back then eased himself back up standing, beating on his hip with his fist as if he’d knock the pain out of it.

“It’s okay! It’s fine,” Kaidan was trying hard not to laugh, in between licking the tip of his thumb to see if his tongue would leave a bead of blood. “God, Ben, are you alright? Here, sit down…”

“No,” Shepard gasped, waved him off when he tried to stand, “Fine. I’m fine.”

“Want me—“

“—No… just…”

“Okay-okay!” Kaidan held his arms up, suppressing just the hint of a smile.

“The first night we set aside in however long,” Shepard grimaced, limping around the cabin, “I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry! I’m in no rush,” Kaidan chuckled. But then a yawn snuck up on him, and his eyes watered with the intensity of it. “You know what we need? Drinks. That’s what we need.”

“You got it. I’m almost out, though.” Shepard finally had managed to shake the surge of pain out of his leg and fetched a bottle and two glasses from the coffee table. “Though I _seem_ to recall buying you a very nice bottle of whiskey you said we’d crack open one of these days.” He cast Kaidan a sidelong look.

“Don’t worry, we will,” Kaidan scooched to the edge of the bed, pulling the hoodie around himself. “I’m just… saving it for something special.”

“This isn’t special?” There was a twinkle in Ben’s eye as he poured.

“Let’s just say it’s an investment on _future_ special occasions. So we’ve always got it to look forward to.” He took his glass from Shepard’s hand when he came back to the bed, tugging playfully at the towel around Ben’s waist. “Besides, if I go get it, I’ll have to put all my clothes back on.”

“Mm,” Shepard frowned. “Good point.” They clinked glasses and Shepard plopped down sideways in the bed-side chair.

“You tell Ann Bryson we’ll be back at the Citadel tomorrow?” Kaidan asked.

“Traynor got in touch with her for me. She’s meeting me at her father’s laboratory.” Shepard yawned wide and took a long sip of his drink. “I guess she hasn’t been at the Citadel for two weeks and hasn’t been down there yet.”

“Gotta be… uh… rough, visiting your dad’s place like that.” Kaidan swirled the alcohol in his glass, the muscles in his neck showing the strain of keeping the smile on his face.

“Yeah.”

“…but she’ll pull it together,” he said under his breath. Then, for Shepard: “It’s going to be hard, but she knows the data we need is… mixed up in that lab with all those memories.”

“I know.” Shepard sighed, brushed over an eyebrow with his thumb. “Hopefully this time tomorrow, we’ll know where to find Leviathan.”

“Still feeling so much pressure about that?”

“I usually like getting mission objectives ticked off my checklist a little faster than this,” he scoffed. “And we need any edge we can get on the Reapers. If this Leviathan _is_ a rogue Reaper, it could tell us everything we need to know about how to kill them.”

“And why they’re here,” Kaidan nodded.

“…does that matter?” Shepard quirked an eyebrow.

“Who knows?” he shrugged. “They’ve always given us the run-around, talking about how they’re saving us by killing us. It’d be nice to not be talked-down to once in a while.”

Shepard hummed against the lip of his glass as he took another sip. “We’ll see if we get a chance to ask them.”

“Want me to come with to the lab tomorrow?”

“Thanks, but EDI will be coming. And I invited James too.”

“Sounds like a good crew.” He smiled, “Well, guess that finally gives me some time to pick up that package I’ve been meaning to get.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“It’s a surprise. For you.” Kaidan winked.

“… _really_?”

“Really. And don’t ask any questions,” he licked a bead of whiskey off the rim of his glass, “because I’m not telling.”

“Fair enough,” Shepard roared with laughter. “I’d hate to throw off your routine.”

Kaidan made a low pitched gurgling noise as he slowly let his body tip over through the aches and pains to lay prone on the bed, setting his glass on the bedside table.

 “I hate Brutes, Shepard. I don’t wanna to be a whiner or anything, but if I never see another Brute again, it’ll be too soon.” His voice was exhausted, but came out in a playful rasp.

“Would you rather have run into a Banshee?” Shepard experimentally stretched the side of his body. Kaidan may or may not have been staring up his towel from his position on the bed.

“You’ve got me there.” Kaidan coughed a laugh, “Although having a Banshee teleport up and try to stab me through the chest would’ve been less stressful than watching a Brute charge you… watching my reave fields do nothing.”

“We got him in the end, though,” Shepard said. Kaidan’s face scrunched in disappointment: Shepard lightly shifted the towel to cover his legs more completely.

“I think it wouldn’t have bothered me so much if I hadn’t been running off to reinforce that position.”

“Kaidan,” he swung his legs to the floor, “you single-handedly saved three people’s lives today.”

“Yeah, but still.” He reached out a hand and Shepard set his drink aside and moved to the bed. He placed a hand on Kaidan’s leg, Kaidan reciprocated, running a hand up his spine. He quirked an eyebrow at the intense look Shepard was giving him.

“How’s your head doing?” Shepard grinned slyly.

“Pain free.” His fingers tickled lightly at small of Shepard’s back, “Ready for whatever adventures you have in mind.”

“Really?” Shepard raised an eyebrow, “Not even that L2 static build-up buzz?”

“Well… well yeah,” Kaidan blinked, “but that doesn’t mean…”

“Where does it hurt?” He sat back on the bed and leaned in to listen. Kaidan’s eyes narrowed.

“Oookay. Right now it just feels like I’ve got sparks fizzing in the back of my head, there’s an ache in my jaw.”

“I’ve been reading a lot about the L2, on the extranet.” Ben waggled his eyebrows.

“Don’t believe everything you read. Some people have some pretty crazy notions.”

Shepard leaned in, tracing around Kaidan’s knee idly as he spoke.

“Apparently, ‘a side effect of the way the L2 manipulates and directs electrical impulses in the body results in it trapping most of the static electricity produced by the body in the manipulation of a dark energy field,’” he recited. “’The L3 and later models were designed to not only keep the implant from collecting the static, but also of dispersing any static that should build up back into the muscle tissue so it can be discharged through skin contact. In L2s, the charge keeps building until it becomes too large for the implant to handle, and it discharges only the excess.’”

“…I know you’re capable of better bedroom banter than this, Shepard.”

“Lay on your side.”

“Shepard, what’re you up to?” Kaidan replied, but scooted higher on the bed and turned to his left side. Shepard laid down on the bed behind, pulling their bodies together.

“Alright, I need to make sure my arms are right on top of your arms… make sure our legs are connected…” Shepard’s tone was clinical, but also knotted with something akin to stage-fright. He had pulled their bodies very close and Kaidan smiled, rolling his eyes.

“You’re not going to tell me what this is about, are you?”

“You keep your secrets…”

“My secret is a _little_ less strange than this.”

“Just go with it.” Shepard smiled and pressed his forehead to the back of Kaidan’s head, “Now, keep your biotics offline, okay?”

“…okay.”

“And… and try to match my breathing.”

Kaidan smiled again and then pushed back into Shepard’s belly pressed against the small of his back as he inhaled. It took him only a moment to let his own breaths match the soft gentle breathing of the man at his back.

“There.”

“Alright, now we just need to wait for our heartbeats to line-up…”

“This… this is actually really nice, Shepard. Just laying like this, together.” He stretched his fingers to let Shepard’s interlink with his. A moment later, Shepard’s heart rate slowed, and Kaidan shuddered as Shepard’s biotics lit up behind him, the blue aura throwing a purple light around the room.

For a moment, Kaidan began to glow—his nervous system attempting to light up, but he had enough discipline to keep them offline. They lay there for a few minutes, Shepard’s blue-flaming skin warming Kaidan’s, the two men still breathing together. Shepard let out a thoughtful ‘Hmm’.

“Let me try one more time.”

Shepard took a few deep breaths, which Kaidan mirrored. Suddenly, blue fire engulfed Kaidan without him activating his own biotics. Shepard laughed in triumph, and the next moment there was a pulse through Kaidan’s head. Shepard winced as though a lightning bolt had just leapt through his brain, and the biotic aura that surrounded Kaidan and him flashed brighter for a moment, then fizzled out.

Kaidan’s eyes flew wide, he rolled off the bed and bolted to his feet. Shepard blinked heavily, gave Kaidan a meek smile, then reached out to touch the bed stand, wincing at the static shock he received. Kaidan, for his part, raised a hand to the base of his skull, rubbing his neck.

“Ben… my head… that static buzz is gone… what the _hell_ did you just do?”

Shepard laughed, resting his hand on his chest. He was beaming, “’Biotic implants use the eezo nodes in the nervous system to augment the body’s proprioception,’ allowing someone to ‘move their whole body in a biotic charge, or create a barrier tight to the body.’ _But_ :” He held up a finger, relishing the moment before resuming his recitation. “’Under the right conditions, one can trick the brain into believing the body is inhabiting more space than it actually is,’ which is why you can form a barrier outside a hardsuit. But you can expand it more by touching another biotic individual. It’s something the asari sometimes do. I did some reading, and someone suggested the method could be used to sync human biotic implants. Once I synced our implants, the static charge your implant was holding got transferred to my implant, which is set up to disperse it.”

Kaidan stared, “And where the hell did you learn to do that?”

“I’ve been practicing it for a few weeks now. Since I found out about your static hair poof.”

Kaidan’s eyes were still wide. Shepard’s brows furrowed for a moment, and he sat on the edge of the bed in front of Kaidan, lightly taking his hands.

“How do you feel?”

“Let me show you.” Kaidan took Shepard’s face between his hands and kissed him until both men were panting, a wet and swollen grin spreading across Ben’s face. “Ben, I didn’t even remember what it was like to not feel that in the back of my head all the time.” Kaidan let the hoodie slide from his shoulders.

“According to Chakwas—“ Shepard’s breath hitched as Kaidan frantically pawed at his towel, “—won’t stop the migraines, but—“ Kaidan’s mouth was back on his own. A moment later, when Kaidan pulled back, he was speechless.

“Shepard… Ben, I haven’t felt this good in over a decade. I can’t wait to hear all about the science after I thank you properly.”

He tossed the towel, and that night the only name Shepard heard was ‘Ben.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:  
> Shepard meets with Ann Bryson on the Citadel to locate Leviathan once and for all, his eagerness alarms him.
> 
> Various Citadel Errands as Needed  
> Meet with Ann Bryson at Lab  
> Meet with Councillor Tevos in Embassies


	20. The Difference between Obsession and Dedication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard and Ann Bryson track Leviathan through the mysterious artifact, Kaidan and Traynor talk about stepping out of your comfort zone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I mentioned that I love Ann Bryson's voice actor? Her performance in this scene... fantastic.

When EDI and Shepard arrived in Dr. Bryson’s laboratory, the lab was still except for the hum of the computer monitors and Ann Bryson’s soft weeping filtering down from the bedroom upstairs.

Shepard’s spine stiffened at the sound and he ran his fingers along a table edge. EDI opened her mouth to speak when she observed Ben’s eyebrows knit together in concern, but he raised a hand and she remained silent. With a heaving sigh, he mounted the stairs alone.

Ann sat on the floor beside the bed, knees to her chest and crying amidst the data-pads, print-outs, and paraphernalia of a scientist whose research permeated every facet of his life. She herself was still dressed as she had been on Namakli weeks before: full research smock with insignia. It was the same way she was dressed in the picture of her and her father on the dresser.

“Ann?” Shepard said quietly.

“Oh, Commander…” Ann batted fitfully at her eyes, “Yes. I’m sorry. Just… this is hard.”

“Of course. Are you alright?”

“Yes,” she said at once. “No… I don’t know.” Shepard stayed at the entrance to the room, brow heavy and posture open. Ann cleared her throat, “My father and I didn’t leave things in a great state.”

“An argument?”

“Yes. It was… trivial. A disagreement on how to file some of the specimens. I was mad about something else. I don’t remember what. And I took it out on him.” Her voice quavered, “So stupid.”

“It’s alright,” Shepard said, running the railing through his fingers. He looked between Ann’s face and the stairs and turned to go, “I can come back.”

“No!” Ann pulled herself to her feet, “I’m okay. Seeing all this again… he was obsessed. Crazy sometimes.”

“I didn’t get a chance to know him.”

“Sometimes I felt the same way. He was a great man. A pioneer. But… he could be distant. I felt like an inconvenience growing up.”

“You sound angry.”

“I was angry.” She picked up her picture from the dresser, “Still am, I guess. But sometimes, he was so full of stories… he nearly burst.”

Shepard stood for a moment, watching the way Ann stared at her younger self in her father’s picture. “…We’ll figure this out.”

“We have to,” she said, tears gone from her eyes when she turned to face Shepard. “I need to know what’s on the other end of that artifact. What he died for.”

“Ann,” Shepard stopped her up short at the top of the stairs, his tone flat once again. His tongue seemed to trip over the words, over the desperation he was trying to mask. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

“Yes.”

Shepard’s face took on a stony expression.

++

James was waiting downstairs as Ann began searching through her father’s files, attracted by the possibility of being close at hand when they finally located their Reaper killer. Despite her vulnerability upstairs, Ann showed no hesitation in tearing through the data, the desk drawers, and the cabinets.

As she searched, Shepard looked around the room, returning to the hunk of Sovereign stored in containment in part of the lab, then approached the artifact held behind containment. It was dark, and Shepard eyed it knowingly as EDI and Ann discussed Leviathan’s control patterns. His posture stiffened, and he kept back from Ann several paces as she walked around the room, appraising her steps. The more EDI and Ann discussed the was Leviathan operated, the more rigid his posture became: jaw set beneath steely eyes. When Ann announced that her mind had already been indoctrinated on some level at the dig-site on Namakli, and that the artifact could communicate through her, Shepard showed no signs of surprise.

Leviathan operated on a principle similar to the Reaper’s indoctrination, using their artifacts to ‘indoctrinate’ people affected: slowly and completely over a great deal of time, or profoundly and immediately if the artifact was maintaining a high output. When Ann suggested that they could trace the source of the QEC-like indoctrination field by using Ann’s already-affected mind as bait, Shepard nodded knowingly.

“That’s too dangerous,” he said, tone void of emotion.

“It’s my call, not yours!” Ann stepped forward, “You said I’m your last chance to find this thing.”

“We don’t know what will happen.”

“I’m the only one here who’s spent enough time with it to do this. You’re looking for a weapon to defeat the Reapers, I’m looking for the monster who murdered my father.”

“We still don’t know what we’re looking for.”

“Then let’s find out,” she said, a glimmer in her eye. Shepard’s face was blank, and he barely turned as James approached.

“Commander, this thing we’re doing with Ann… sounds dangerous as hell.”

“Noted.” Shepard casually balled his hands into fists, cracking each knuckle with a press of his thumb.

It took only a few moments for EDI to set up the necessary algorithms to monitor any signals emanating from the artifact. Though the signal coming through would be instantaneous from anywhere in the universe, the scanner would take quite a while to triangulate it via data caches moving through the Relay network. Ann sat before the artifact and sighed.

“You sure about this?” Shepard asked, standing at a distance. His back still rigid, back from EDI’s console and a pace or two removed from where Ann sat nervous in her chair. He ran a thumb over one of his uniform pockets: calculating, hard-coding.

“Yes,” the doctor answered almost immediately, but then she sighed. “I’m sure.”

“I’m gonna be right here.” James rested a hand on her shoulder, Shepard watched him with a detached interest.

“Okay.” Anne didn’t seem too comforted, but she had stopped balling up her slacks into fists on her lap. She stared at the floor in front of Shepard’s feet, but he stood unmoving. “I’m ready.”

With the bearing of a surgeon approaching the operating table, Shepard stepped forward, rolling his sleeves. “James, drop the containment shield.”

“Shield is…” he punched the button and returned to Ann’s side, “dropped.”

“Artifact online,” EDI said quietly at the console. The orb began to glow: lightning storms raging across a tossing ocean trapped within.

“Anything?” Shepard asked, arms hanging at his sides, appraising the small shocks of fear that passed over Ann’s face.

“Nothing yet.” James rested both hands on her shoulders when she shivered, “Wait… there’s something…” Her hair fell in front of her face, eyes pleading up into Shepard’s mechanical gaze, “I feel a chill…”

“EDI?” His voice was a grave whisper.

“No trace yet.”

Ann pitched forward. James curses, gripping her shoulders.

“Signal is tracking,” EDI’s fingers were a flurry of activity on her console, “Maintain connection!”

“Turn back!” Ann’s tone was distant: her voice, but not her will. “The darkness cannot be breached.”

“ _Dios!”_

“Maintain connection!”

Shepard did not bend his knees, or move closer, or raise his voice above a gravelly hiss before he spoke.

“Listen to me. _I_ found you,” the words hung in the air above the convulsing Ann, “and the Reapers are right behind me.”

“ _You_ have brought them!” Tears dropped from Ann’s eyes, her voice straining under Leviathan’s manipulation.

Then, it was no longer Ann speaking.

**“You are a threat.”**

“So are you.” Shepard stalked above the restrained doctor, “I’ve seen what you can do. The war needs you.”

**“There is no war** , **”** it mocked, **“there is only the Harvest.”**

Shepard turned away, lip curled back into a snarl. But his eyes were less sure, now that his back was to the pulsing orb. To the quaking Ann Bryson.

“EDI, do we have enough?”

“Partial lock. Maintain connection to narrow the search!”

The signal spread over the galaxy like the filaments of a spiders’ web.

“You heard her!” James grunted, “We have enough! I’m hitting the shield!”

A dozen possible systems chittering on the interface like captured flies.

“Maintain connection!”

The orb pulsed.

James released Ann to punch the containment button—

“Belay that, Lieutenant!” Shepard’s finger in Vega’s face stopped him short. Wide-eyed, he took hold of Ann’s shoulders again.

Ann’s body bent at a horrific angle, wringing a strangled cry from her throat.

“Signal is fading—“

Planets dimming one by one, cornering Leviathan.

“—maintain connection!”

James shook his head, jaw set.

“We can fight them.” Shepard stooped down, “We can win this.”

**“The Cycle cannot be broken.”**

“You’re wrong,” Shepard hissed.

Ann’s eyes closed.

“Focusing the point of origin…” EDI called.

With every quiver the wracked the doctor’s body, another star system went dark.

“…maintain connection to narrow the search!”

Eyes open.

The orb throbbed electric blue.

James came to his knees to hold Ann back.

“I’m stopping this!”

Blood poured from Ann’s nose, eyes black.

Shepard stood impassive, breath controlled while James grunted and Ann’s heart beat wildly out of rhythm. He looked up, passed James and Ann.

Into the crackling artifact. The prize of Dr. Garret Bryson—final proof of all his work.

Staring like an unblinking eye.

He looked back to Ann, the same woman in the photographs scattered throughout the lab, bleeding and seizing under Leviathan’s hold.

But the search algorithm EDI was running was still sifting the galaxy through thin fingers…

“James… raise the shield.”

Ann slid to her knees with a cry when the shield went up, deadly quiet compared to how much Vega was panting from trying to hold her.

“Jeez,” he stooped beside Shepard to hold Ann up, “Look at her!”

“Ann,” Shepard kneeled down, some softness creeping back into his voice, “Ann, are you alright?”

“I’m… not sure,” she touched her head and winced. She sucked a pained breath through her teeth, and James cast a dark look at Shepard. “It hurts…”

“It’s going to be okay,” Shepard’s voice shook. “You did great. EDI, did we get anything?”

James spoke quietly to Ann when Shepard joined EDI at the console.

“Yes, though it will take time to search. Coordinates sent to the Normandy.”

“This better be worth it,” James growled.

“Agreed, Lieutenant.” Shepard leaned his weight on his hands, head hung low before the galaxy map: the spider web showing four bright possibilities for his next hunt. “Anything else, Ann?”

“It was dark… cold. I can tell you this much: Leviathan is angry.” She walked on unsteady legs, and Shepard caught her arm as she stumbled into him.

“It knows we’re getting close.”

“I think it wants to kill you,” she said softly, turning her face to Shepard’s. Her eyes were red-ringed and glassy, and the blood on her upper lip was turning dark.

“Come on…. Let’s get you some help…”

++

Sometime later, James sat beside Shepard in the sky car. They had left Ann recovering in a med clinic nearby, and EDI had returned to the ship. When Shepard had parked the car outside the docks, James had stayed.

“I didn’t know what to do down there, _Loco_ ,” he said softly.

“What do you mean James?”

“With Ann… Doctor Bryson. I would’ve turned that shield on at the first sign of trouble.”

“Yeah,” Shepard swallowed. “Does that bother you?”

“You knew what to do. You knew to hold on and get as much info as we could.” He brushed a thumb coarsely across his bottom lip, “I was ready to disobey a direct order to raise that shield.”

“I could see that.”

“…How did you know?”

“Know what?” Shepard’s voice was hollow.

“How long to hold it for?”

“I didn’t, James.”

“…what?”

“We needed the information, Ann was the key to getting it. I didn’t want to hurt her. But we make choices all the time to see the mission through.” He cleared his throat, setting his jaw once again, “Sometimes we choose wrong. Sometimes we don’t know whether the choice was right or wrong, ever.”

“…she could’ve died.”

“Yes.”

“In the heat of the moment, with men under my command: okay. But… with a civilian? How do you make that decision?”

“…sometimes there is no ‘right’ choice, James.”

They sat in silence for a moment after that before James nodded slowly. He opened the car door and closed it wordlessly. Shepard did not watch him go.

_“Commander Shepard?”_ came a soft voice over the comms. Shepard sighed.

“Go ahead, EDI.”

“ _Councilor Tevos is requesting to see you in the Human Embassy,”_ she said placidly, “ _she says the matter is urgent._ ”

“I’m on my way,” Shepard cleared his throat, and the sky car lifted off again.

++

“Still not sure if I like it,” Traynor guffawed, spilling another two fingers of the orange liquor into her glass. “But ‘third time’s the charm!’”

“Very nice, Traynor,” Kaidan said in a dry tone, looking over the top of his data-pad. Traynor spun around in her bar stool to look down at where Kaidan sat on the couch. The Port Observation Lounge was awash in the thin blue light of the Serpent Nebula, it made Traynor’s orange drink glow faintly.

“What’re you doing in the _Port_ Lounge, Major?” she smirked, biting her lip. “I thought you preferred the ‘peace and quiet’ of the _other_ side of the ship.”

Kaidan smiled indulgently and tapped at his pad, “I like to get out of my comfort zone every once in a while,” He teased.

“Welcome to the _fun_ lounge!” she slid down from the bar stool, sipping at her drink before plopping down on the sofa across from Kaidan. “The port side is the fun side of the ship—Oh I’m sorry, can I get you anything?”

“Thanks, but I’m good.”

“Okay then. Now why are you _really_ here, Major Kaidan Alenko, Second Human Spectre?” She narrowed her eyes.

“Believe it or not, I do like a little drinks and conversation once in a while,” Kaidan chuckled.

“Then _you_ should come out dancing with Steve and me, sometime.”

“Takes a special occasion to get me dancing.”

“I heard from Garrus that the two of you and Shepard used to dance at Flux in your armor.”

“…ummm…” Kaidan’s ears pinked a little, “Let’s just, uh, say you can’t let Shepard out on the floor alone. Solidarity.”

“Solidarity,” she smirked.

“Anyway, thanks for the offer, but no.” Kaidan shook his head with a smile, looking up to see Traynor waggling her eyebrows, “Though I heard the two of you talking about getting some dancing done. What’re you doing drinking in here with your XO?”

“We’ll be heading out soon as Commander Shepard gets back from Dr. Bryson’s lab,” she leaned back against the couch, the drink sloshing within her glass, “Didn’t think we’d have enough time to get any real dancing in. So,” she sighed, “The Lieutenant decided to take an extra duty shift with the shuttle and _I_ …” she held aloft the glass, “Decided to make the most of my off-time and celebrate right here.”

“I don’t think I approved another duty shift for Steve,” Kaidan frowned, “But I guess I get how you feel: was supposed to head up to the Spectre Requisition office for my order. Never sure how long it’s gonna take Shepard to get to the bottom of things down there, but all I need is to get to the embassy level and have to turn right back around for take-off.”

“So have a drink with me!”

“Thanks but, uh…” he snickered at the joking school-marm look Traynor gave him, “I’m probably retreating to my ‘comfort zone’ on the boring side of the ship pretty soon—wouldn’t feel right.”

Traynor took a long drink and sighed, slumping down until her head laid back on the couch. “ _Speaking_ of comfort zones: if you would’ve told me last year that I’d be on the fastest ship in the galaxy, racing out of the Reapers’ jaws and cavorting around dozens of systems, I would’ve thought you were joking.”

“Finally feel settled in?”

“What does it look like?” she grinned, drawing her legs up underneath her. “I’ve been to the edge of the galaxy! Flew beyond the Perseus Veil! Makes me wonder what it’d be like to actually go down to all those planets, such incredible things down there. When I think of all the things you must’ve seen…”

“Dangerous landscapes and strange food? Wouldn’t have thought that’d be your speed, Traynor.”

“The drink is helping,” she leaned up to take another sip. “So, what’s your favorite planet you’ve ever been on as a soldier?”

“Favorite planet?”

“Most _beautiful_ planet you’ve ever seen.”

“Favorite or most beautiful—“

“—Favorite most _beautiful_ planet you’ve _ever_ seen.”

“Hmm…”

“Oh don’t _think_ about it! Just tell me! First one off the top of your head.”

“That’s hard to say though, right?” Kaidan avoided Traynor’s gaze when she lolled her head over to give him an incredulous look. “I’ve seen some… incredible things out there. On the first Normandy, now again.” He laughed suddenly, “Seems like every planet we landed on back on the SR-1 was just covered in mountains, Garrus and I used to joke about it. And of course Shepard would just go careening around right over every single one in the Mako—“

Kaidan lost his words in a sputtered laugh at the memory. When he looked up, Traynor had rolled to her side on the couch, regarding him placidly and waiting for him to continue.

“Umm…” he sobered, rubbing his neck, “Problem was, we didn’t go anywhere without something happening, you know? Beautiful places but… a lot of bad memories too. Never got to appreciate the sky on some of the places for long before we were routing out a merc base or I was laying down crossfire on a geth colossus so Garrus could get a clean shot. Not a lot of time for scenery.”

“When we took Wrex to Sur’kesh, I saw the surface scans. It looked fantastic—too many trees, of course, but the water—but after Cerberus attacked I it would be hard to visit without thinking about Mordin.” She leaned up to finish her drink and set the glass on the floor, pulling her knees up to her chest.

“Yeah,” Kaidan stared blankly at his data-pad, “I guess I’ve got a lot of things like that in the roster of planets I’ve visited.”

“But you were talking about you and Garrus and the Commander gallivanting around in the Mako, so I guess it can’t be all bad?” She gave him a hopeful expression.

“Yeah,” he chuckled, “Of course not.”

“Though if we win against the Reapers,” she said quietly, “I suppose there’s not going to be many places where _somebody_ doesn’t have bad memories. Not looking forward to that.”

“First things first. And… there’s good memories too: always will be.”

“So what was your favorite memory, then? Which planet’s still beautiful after everything?” She gave Kaidan a radiant smile.

“Hmm,” Kaidan set aside the pad, smiling just a little. “Thinking about Sur’kesh, all the water… makes me think about Virmire. But…. That’s got some of the worst memories.”

“Because….? Sorry, I shouldn’t ask!” She buried her face in her hands, but Kaidan waved the apology aside.

“We were chasing Saren, had just caught up with his plan on Virmire. We got dropped a few klicks out from the STG team we were rendezvousing with. It’s a gorgeous planet. Shepard… heh. He thought it was so great. He just watched the ocean, waves crashing on the breakers… a storm in the distance.” He rubbed a thumb down one side of his mouth, “He had never seen anything quite like that: the ocean, the jungle. So distracted he almost crashed the Mako a couple times! Not that that would’ve mattered… Once we finally met with Kirrahe’s team and had a little time to sit before the strike…

“He wandered off by himself, kneeling by the tidal pools, watching crabs. Up to his knees in the surf, watching the storm above the swells. Just… drinking in the breeze with his eyes closed. I think that was the first time I—“ he looked up suddenly, and Traynor was watching him intently, face impossible to read. “Umm… the first time I actually saw him relax that much.”

“He’s very focused on the mission,” she offered softly.

“Yeah. But he checked his weapons and… just went wading in the sea. So… that was a pretty beautiful thing to see—Virmire, I mean.” He scratched the side of his nose.

“Sounds _fantastic_!”

“Wish I could remember it that way. Things went sideways. Saren was breeding krogan slaves, Shepard got into it with Wrex, almost came to a firefight. The nuke we needed to place was compromised, Saren showed up. I almost died. We lost most of the STG team, and Ashley Williams.”

“Oh… from… the memorial wall?” Samantha grimaced.

“First Rich Jenkins on Eden Prime, then Ash on Virmire. First friends I lost in this war, and didn’t even know we were fighting a war yet.” He shook his head, “Anyway, couple seconds out of atmo and the nuke we planted leveled the facility, the jungle, those beaches. Everything.”

“Oh my god.”

“It needed to be done. I mean, all of us knew it needed to be done. And compared to losing… Ash, a couple klicks of jungles and beaches doesn’t matter to me all that much. But it was beautiful. Rest of the planet’s probably just as beautiful, though. Funny how something like that… losing someone like Ashley, can ruin an entire planet.”

“Is that true about the Commander?” Traynor pulled herself up on the couch to lean her elbow on the arm of the couch. She had a sly smile on her face, “Walking around the beach, looking at the crabs like a little boy on holiday?”

Kaidan quirked an eyebrow, “Mhm.”

“Ah!” She crowed with laughter, but quickly sobered, “I think about that sometimes when I’m writing in my journal: I’m living through _history_. Commander Shepard is already a legend, and when he wins this war he’s going to be the biggest legend in the galaxy. And _I’m_ sorting his messages! I beat him in chess!”

“File that one away for the grandkids,” Kaidan smirked.

“A thousand years from now, there’s going to be statues of Shepard everywhere. Every other baby in the universe is going to be named for him. I know I won’t be in those stories, but to live through those great campaigns that are going to be stories and songs: that’s humbling! Thinking about him on that beach makes me think about him in a whole new way. You know I’ve never thought about Commander Shepard as a boy. What was he like do you think?” She leaned her cheek on her hand.

“Happy, I hope,” said Kaidan, almost too softly to be heard.

“It’s a huge responsibility, being on this ship.” Traynor sat up, tucking a fallen lock of hair behind her ear, “Sometimes I wonder how I got here. I’m not legend material.”

“What happened to ‘exploring alien worlds’ from a minute ago?” Kaidan chuckled.

“Oh, I don’t know!” she laughed just a little, but her expression remained flat. “Not just posturing, I hope. Sometimes I wonder if I believe _myself_ when I say things like that!”

“Maybe you just believe yourself when you say you can’t a little too much.”

Traynor rolled her eyes, but nodded with a smile, “Well, if I can’t go dancing, maybe I’ll bring the party to Cortez down in the shuttle bay?”

“Good luck with that,” Kaidan smiled, switching his data-pad back on. Traynor returned the bottle of orange liquor behind the bar and waved as she swept out of the room.

Kaidan’s novel lay open to his last bookmark on the data-pad, and he stared for a long time before finally opening a new document and titling it ‘Journal Entry.’

> _I’m having trouble reading today. Having trouble keeping my mind on anything, if I’m being honest. Talking to Samantha, she mentioned journaling when she needs to get her thoughts in order._
> 
> _Everyone always says they want to do more of that, I guess. Keeping a journal has always annoyed me, especially back at BAaT when they made us keep nightly journals about our training. I guess I figure in a few years I won’t want to remember what kind of person I was today. I’m doing plenty I’m proud of, a lot more than not these days. I have a lot of memories and a lot of past mistakes to answer for, and I’m fine with that._
> 
> _Doesn’t mean I exactly want to go and make some more! I know Ben feels like I think too much, and he’s right. Maybe by the time I sit down to write out what I’m thinking, I just don’t want to think anymore._
> 
> _This book I’m reading,_ Fifth Business, _is all about how we view legends and saints and heroes, and how we mythologize our own lives. Traynor talked about how she can see that happening with Shepard, and I guess I can too. Everyone mythologizes their life, but Shepard’s life really_ is _going to be a legend one day._
> 
> _I guess it got me thinking: which parts of my life have I mythologized? I told Shepard the truth when I told him about my past, so far as I know. A lot of that is stuff you don’t really say out loud, ever. But talking with Shepard about it is easy. I never imagined I would be telling a lover any of the things I’ve told Ben about my past._
> 
> _I guess that’s why I got the hankering to do some journaling: no more legends. I’ll have a written record of what I was doing and why I was doing it. As much as I understand my motivations, I guess._
> 
> _My days are sort of slipping past me, I guess. I’ve lost almost everything: all my stuff was wiped out in the invasion, my dad’s dead, my mom’s in danger every second I don’t end this war. I got my rank, finally, after all these years, but it doesn’t mean anything the way this war is going._
> 
> _And I’m with Ben Shepard. I never imagined I was going to find anyone, and I really never imagined I could ever end up with Ben. I sound like a gushing teenager._
> 
> _People are going through hell out there, and whenever I’m with Shepard that just doesn’t matter. I don’t even feel guilty about how happy it makes me when I think about him standing in the surf, staring out at the storm with this wide-eyed excitement. When I can hold him in my arms. Traynor was right, he’s going to be a legend. A name everybody knows. If we beat the Reapers._
> 
> _And until then? I’ll keep holding on, I guess. I don’t have much, and sometimes I’m barely holding it together when I think about my dad. But I’ve got him._
> 
> _And I’m all he’s got. So I need to be strong._

_“Major,”_ EDI’s voice sounded over the comms, _“I have just received a transmission from Commander Shepard to make the ship ready for immediate departure.”_

“Must have found something,” Kaidan nodded sternly, saving his journal entry. “Notify the port authority. He’s gonna want an ETA.”

There was a pause and Kaidan shut off his data-pad, _“Normandy cleared for departure from Dock 24 in three hours.”_

“That’s forever. Shepard’s not gonna like that,” Kaidan grumbled. “…how… how did he sound when you talked to him, EDI?”

_“Shepard seemed distracted after working with Dr. Bryson at her father’s laboratory. When he contacted me a moment ago, his tone was… terse. His blood pressure is also extremely elevated.”_

“And where is Shepard now?” Kaidan stood, smoothed his uniform shirt.

_“Presidium Embassies, summoning rapid transport for the docking bay.”_

“I’m gonna see if I can’t head him off. Give the order, recall anyone ashore. We’re leaving in three, but I want the ship prepped to leave in an hour.”

_“Aye.”_

++

Kaidan strode out of the ship, crossing the open platform as Shepard came into view: tall, yet somehow coiled in on himself. He brushed passed the dock workers, hardly paying any mind, eyes fixed ahead.

“Shepard?” Kaidan called, voice lost in the open air of the bay. He walked towards Shepard slowly, a counterpoint to the haste in Ben’s own steps. He called again Shepard looked up.

“Kaidan, is everything alright?” Shepard asked, brow furrowed when he finally stopped in front of Kaidan.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Kaidan folded his arms, then shifted awkwardly and opened his posture again. “Come on, over here a minute, okay?”

Shepard followed, and in a few minutes they had wordlessly ascended a ladder to a high platform and looked out. The Serpent Nebula lay spread out before them: a watercolor of blue hues filtering the intensity of the Widow, patterns of dust and gas moving in waves that unfolded over eons. Kaidan squinted as he stared out into open space, an asari destroyer casting a ribbon of shadow behind itself as it sped away from the dock.

“What’d you need, Kaidan?” Shepard asked, stepping up beside him at the railing. “Can we talk inside? We need to be on the move.”

“Easy, Shepard. We’ve got three hours before we’re cleared for departure. Let’s just sit a little bit, I just wanted to talk,” Kaidan hopped up to sit on a crate. “Did you get any good information on Leviathan?”

“…we got a lead. But…” Shepard stared out, the dock’s forcefield shimmering as a turian frigate crossed the threshold. Kaidan put a strong hand on Shepard’s shoulder, and Ben hopped back up onto the crate. “Councilor Tevos wanted to meet with me.”

“Uh oh.”

“There’s something on Thessia. An old temple. The Matriarchs think that the Catalyst is there.”

“The Catalyst? The component we’re missing from the Crucible construction?”

“Yeah.”

“Shepard,” Kaidan shook his head, mouth agape, “that’s huge.”

“It is,” he sighed heavily. “Now I need to decide if we go off and try to chase down this Leviathan lead, or if we make best speed for Thessia.”

There was a long moment of silence, the sound of Normandy’s mass effect generators going through warm-up procedures with the dock technicians making Shepard’s jaw tense.

“Hey,” Kaidan bumped their shoulders gently, “What’re you thinking about?”

“Trying to keep humanities best interest in mind,” Shepard replied sardonically. “…if we get the Catalyst tomorrow, the war could be over next week. No one else has to die…”

“But?” Kaidan leaned in when Ben trailed off.

“We don’t know who designed the Crucible. We have no idea if it will work. We have no idea if the Catalyst is even real. It’s putting our faith in the races that came before us. And they’re all dead.”

“It’s a big risk, huh?” Kaidan nodded, watched the way the blue light from the Widow played across Shepard’s features. “I guess we’ve done a lot with the little bit of hope we had, haven’t we?”

“Leviathan,” Shepard said after a moment, “We _know_ that it killed a Reaper. Once it’s out of hiding, who knows the damage it could do? It could be a sure thing. It could shift the balance.”

“So we go after Leviathan, then?”

“That’s what I don’t know.” Shepard swallowed hard, “I’m not afraid to make the call: even with the fate of this war riding on me—on us… My best is all I’ve got. But…” He turned to Kaidan, brow crinkled in a face of unpracticed remorse.

“Shepard, what?”

“…Ann traced the source of the transmission coming out of those artifacts to three possible systems. In order to narrow it down that far, I let the artifact hurt Ann. If we would’ve held off another minute, it might have killed her. And I let that happen. Some hero.”

“Is she…?”

“Yeah, she’s fine.” He turned away from Kaidan’s gaze, “It was her idea. And I tried to talk her out of it…  Because that’s what you’re supposed to do. But I knew we wouldn’t get anywhere unless she did it. And I knew she wouldn’t let me talk her out of it before I ever started. I kept the shielding offline even as Leviathan started talking through her. I was allowing it to burrow into her mind. I was torturing her.”

“She’s alright, Ben,” Kaidan assured, softly, but his brow was knit. “And we have a lead.”

“What about ‘intention,’ then?”

“You weren’t going to let her die, Shepard.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know you,” Kaidan said forcefully. Shepard stared out at the rippling forcefield. “You’re a good man, Ben. You didn’t just offer Ann an out because it was the ‘thing to do,’ you saw a tactical opening and a woman ready to take on that risk.”

“I’ve said over and over that there’s no point in winning this war if we give up our humanity to win. It’s what separates us from Cerberus,” his voice was rising, “But I never had any ‘humanity,’ Kaidan. Since I was a kid… I’m… I just don’t. And I’ve done terrible things because I don’t have the moral challenges. At the end of the day, my campaigns are a series of choices that will lead me to an ending… and I try to be moral. I really do. But there’s no ‘right answer.’ And there never was. Councilor Tevos said that I am the sole bright light in the darkness. What would all these people say if they saw me with Ann Bryson today?

”I will save as many lives as I can.” He stiffened, turned to Kaidan miserable, “As many lives… however I can. And that doesn’t make me much different than the Reapers, does it? So how can you even say that I wouldn’t have tortured Ann Bryson to death if it didn’t give me the location of any weapon that would get me one step closer to accomplishing the mission?”

“Because, Shepard,” Kaidan leaned forward to catch Shepard’s eye. “Part of holding onto our humanity is letting people make their own damn choices. Ann knew what she was choosing. The people who are putting their faith in you are _choosing_ you. Don’t think for a second they don’t have other options they could’ve chosen.” He lowered his voice, close enough now to nearly be resting his chin on Shepard’s shoulder, “I made a choice, too.”

“Kaidan…” Ben said after a long and tense silence, his fingers discreetly tangling with Kaidan’s between where they sat on the crate.

“You’re a catch, Shepard,” Kaidan smirked. Shepard certainly did his best to return the smile. They sat in silence for a while, and Kaidan smiled, humming contently as he scooched closer to Shepard. “I’m glad I came out today. I was trying to read—sitting in the Port Lounge because you can see the Nebula better—and… I forgot how beautiful the ‘sky’ looks from the docks.”

“Some ‘sky’ huh?”

“Yeah,” Kaidan sighed with a smile, “Do you remember back on the SR-1? Before we disembarked from the Citadel we would just… sit up on the old Alliance dock. You, me, and Garrus. Or Ash. Just sit up there talking and… and not worrying about a thing.”

“I remember waiting while Admiral Mikhailovich went over the ship with a fine-toothed comb,” Shepard chuckled.

“Yeah, that was probably the longest,” he hummed. “But we came up here a couple times. I’m sure of it. Felt nice. Normal.”

“Space marines watching a man-made nebula on the largest artificial structure in the galaxy,” Shepard said wryly. “Very normal.”

Kaidan guffawed, threw an arm around Shepard’s shoulder, “You know what I mean! Times where you could forget that you were trying to survive or save someone and could just… be. Y’know, I was thinking about you on… on Virmire today. The beach.”

“The beach…?” Shepard’s smile sagged.

“Yeah, while Kirrahe’s men were getting ready. You were walking around in the water.”

“I love the sea. I know it didn’t look anything like it, but it reminded me of the Mediterranean,” Ben said quietly, “when I was a kid. Now I wonder if the Mediterranean will just make me think of Virmire.”

“Don’t think like that,” Kaidan whispered into his ear. “Just… remember it as beautiful. Just like this ‘sky,’ just like this moment right now. Just like you. You’re still Ben Shepard under all those scars, under all that grief. That’s all I wanna see you think about, okay?”

Shepard turned his head into the warmth of Kaidan’s breath. He nodded finally.

“…I know the galaxy sees me as larger than life. Let them believe what they want, as long as it keeps spirits high.” He shook his head, “But that’s the other problem with this choice: Thessia or Leviathan. Ann says Leviathan wants to kill me, and they sure as hell don’t want to be found by anyone. We know it can kill Reapers, and we don’t know that about the Crucible. But if we’re going to get Leviathan into this war, I need to believe that I’m so great I can convince an ancient creature that hates me and wants to hide away that it should follow me into battle with the creatures it’s been hiding from forever.”

“Worth a shot?” Kaidan chuckled mirthlessly.

“I don’t think I have the ego for that. I don’t know, tactically, if there’s a right decision, one way or the other. But I’d rather believe in the races that came before us than believe that I’m some… super-human. That’s why they made me a Spectre, and that’s why Cerberus put me back together. But I can’t base my decisions on that.”

“…so what now?”

“Thessia,” Shepard said, tone cutting through the word like a knife. “We go to Thessia.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Thessia.


	21. The Difference between Earth and Thessia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thessia was a nightmare. Afterwards, Shepard is doubting being such a paragon.

_“Trillions of lives are always at risk…”_

Vendetta, the Prothean VI, had been locked deep in the temple of Athame for fifty thousand years, waiting for people clever enough to discover him. Unknown to the Citadel races. Unknown to the asari fleeing the planet even now.

And over the comms, another commando squad was wiped out: their cries drowned in the charging cries of a hoard of Banshees that had descended on the city.

Reapers filled the sky…

“ _If they wanted to destroy all organic life, they could.”_

A ghost of the Illusive Man reached out to touch with unfeeling hands the Prothean relic, as if the man light years away could feel the power of potential through the holographic contact. The power of control. The sight of the city on fire hadn’t drawn his eye: the wreckage of the asari air forces smoked in the background, the stench of flaming fuel and burning bodies on the air. Screams…

A trickle of blood ran down from Shepard’s ear: slithered into his armor under the collar, seeping into his thermal layer. As they had fought their way through the rubble on the temple approach, he’d held his shoulders square. He was a hurricane, tearing through the Reaper forces with an exercised precision.

Liara and Kaidan had raced to watch his six, but everything in Shepard’s wake was dead: friend and foe alike. The asari who were keeping the approach open had all perished. It was impossible to protect them against an army so vast. It was impossible to avenge them against an enemy so unfeeling.

Shepard had slaughtered everything that had targeted his allies—but always too late. He had thrown his body in front of theirs—only to watch as the next stray shot ripped through them as he left to push forward.

Always forward. He tried to make himself a target more tempting than the aircraft providing support, attracted the notice of the Brutes and the Banshees that seemed to pour out of the ground—his flare had crippled one Harvester, but another swooped in instantly and decimated the ship in an instant.

Somehow, through the haze and through the battle, Kai Leng had arrived first…

_“With the Prothean data in this beacon, I can end this conflict. Once and for all.”_ Shepard’s voice quaked, facing the man who had resurrected him, who threatened him here now at the end of it all. _“You’re either with me or against me. There’s nothing gray about that.”_

The bodies the asari soldiers had managed to recover lay in rows beneath red sheets back at the encampment: row upon row of the fallen.

Retrieved from the fray for nothing. Even they would burn when the encampment fell…

The Normandy had arrived in orbit to find Reapers ravaging the planet, communication channels scrambled. Cities that were the pride of millennia lay in rubble heaps. But Shepard’s back had stayed stiff, his eyes determined, and his actions flawless and mechanical. But still, he was always too late. He didn’t look away from his scope as their air-support had perished, or the asari maintaining a shield around them had been run-through by a Banshee. There was no time.

There was the mission. Moral questions had to wait.

There was no gray…

_“You’re slower than I expected, Shepard!_ ” But Kai Leng’s taunt had been hollow: the barrel of Shepard’s shotgun pressed to his barrier in the flash of a single biotic charge. The blast had practically shattered the Cerberus agent’s shield. But always the lights: the Cerberus gunship chasing him back behind cover…

They’d solved the mystery of the temple during an eerie gap in the fighting. The war had raged on outside the temple walls, and Kaidan, Liara, and Shepard had inspected the remnants of Prothean technology embedded in ancient asari artifacts…

_“You must be Commander Shepard.”_ The asari commander had recognized him immediately, mustering the very last of her optimism to welcome him into the camp: to rally her troops.

In the temple, the asari relics had recognized him too: mistaken him for Prothean. He was always being mistaken for something.

Now the relics were smashed.

The asari commander was dead.

Shepard had not been slow. But it wasn’t good enough.

When the gunship had fired its missiles at the structure’s supports, the ground opened up and swallowed the temple whole, ground crumbling away into a deep chasm beneath the ancient site. Knocked back by the concussion, Shepard’s shotgun slid into the abyss, and he had held on for his life while Kai Leng stole the Prothean VI.

By the time he had climbed back up, Kai Leng was gone.

Reapers fell like hammers to the earth.

His composure was stripped away.

Asari units over the comms cried out for help, but couldn’t hear Shepard calling back, asking for their position: skin glowing blue and reaching for his pistol to continue the fight.

Liara watched as the capital ships hit the ground and began leveling the city.

And Kaidan—hobbling grievously—stared on in horror as the sunset made the sky a blood red.

_“I’ve got a Reaper inbound! Please, is anybody there? I—Goddess! No!”_

++

The next few minutes were a blur. Steve flew through hell to reach the crumbling temple, and Shepard bolted through the hatch and bent over Cortez’s controls as they raced into orbit. The shuttle barely made it out of atmo: the Normandy had to dip precipitously into the stratosphere to pick them up, all the while under heavy Reaper fire. Kaidan’s leg was being held together by medi-gel and his greaves. Joker risked a dangerous jump to FTL from inside Thessia’s atmosphere to escape. Then, the Mass Relay was swarming with Reaper capital ships when they arrived.

They barely escaped with their lives.

Kaidan spent almost an hour in surgery while the bones in his leg were knit back together. Chakwas said he’d be sore for days: the lowest of the two breaks had shattered in a spiral and splintered, and the ligaments were overstrained. He took the news impassively, still grim about the mission. But Chakwas was a consummate professional, asking him to insist that Shepard come by for his post-mission check-up, exactly as she did after every mission.

“God, Kaidan!” Chief Adams came running into medbay, dark patches under his arms. The engineering team had been working hard to find novel ways of dissipating the heat from the Normandy’s stealth systems to stay undetected in orbit long enough for Shepard’s team to reach the temple. Greg had a livid burn on his left hand. “You look like hell! EDI gave us the update on Thessia, what a shitshow—“

He stopped abruptly when Kaidan cast him a look, flicked his eyes to where Liara sat putting her boots back on after her check-up.

“Oh, Dr. T’soni,” Adams continued, shuffling over to Liara, “I’m… so sorry about Thessia.”

“Thank you for your sympathy,” Liara did not look at him, sliding back into her coat and checking the cuffs.

“We’ll beat the Reapers, Liara.” He wiped at the sheen of sweat across his forehead and ended up smearing some grease into his hair. He winced and cradled his hand, “Shepard’s going to find a way to make this right.”

“I appreciate that, Greg…” She still couldn’t quite meet his eye, and seemed to opt to straighten her collar instead.

“Are you alright?” He leaned forward again, but Kaidan was hopping over on one leg to lay a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, Greg? We’re all just gonna need a little time, okay?” He clapped Adams’ shoulder. “What happened there?” He gestured to Adam’s hand.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Coolant conduit ruptured. Cerberus sure didn’t build her to improvise…” he trailed off and finally turned to speak to Dr. Chakwas, but Liara stopped him.

“Greg, thank you for being concerned. Truthfully, all I want to do now is work harder to stop the Reapers before anyone else has to go through what I—“ she shook her head, “what _we_ just did.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” he gave her a half smile.

“Oh, and Greg,” Kaidan asked, eyes on the floor, “Have you, uh… seen Shepard since we got back?”

“Heard from Traynor he took off his armor and stormed into the QEC room. Why, you need him for something?”

“No,” Kaidan frowned. “No, that’s okay.”

Greg smiled and wandered back over to speak with Chakwas at her desk in hushed voices. Kaidan gave Liara a stiff nod and limped back to his bed, but Liara followed close after.

“Kaidan,” she buttoned her jacket, watching her hands as if they were foreign objects, “on the surface, you said there were three things you would always remember. The first time you saw a life taken, the first time you took a life, and then… what we were seeing then.” She swallowed, “Why did you say that?”

“…those were both… moments I realized how fragile life could be, I guess.” He eased himself back up onto the table and winced trying to bend down to put his boot back on.

“And you felt that on Thessia.” Liara took his boot in hand and helped slide it onto his foot.

“Yeah, I guess I did.”

“Why on Thessia? Why not your own world?”

“Because…” Kaidan shook his head, “Thessia is ancient, beautiful. And… there… wasn’t time to think when I left Earth. It was all about trying to rescue Shepard—umm, trying to get as many people out in one piece. I guess I didn’t have time to think about it.”

“They’re exterminating my people, Kaidan,” Liara whispered gravely. “They’re only harvesting from the largest cities… they only want asari with the latent genetic potential to be _ardat yakshi_. They’re not interested in politics and…  converting the population into husks like they’re doing on Earth. Many cities were glassed from orbit… If we don’t end this war quickly…”

Kaidan tried to take her hand, but she was still lacing his boot, “We’ll fight back.”

“If we’d come sooner, do you think we would’ve beaten Cerberus?” She yanked the knot tight in Kaidan’s boot and stood.

“We came as fast as we could.”

“But if we’d _known_ sooner. The Illusive Man said they found out from the Codex. If I had paid more attention—“

“Liara,” he came to his feet uneasily. “You can’t blame yourself.”

“I know,” she breathed. “Are… you alright? Your leg? And… what you said?”

“I’m alright.” His jaw was tight, “Good thing, too. Gotta put on a brave face for the crew.”

“Don’t be too ‘brave,’” she said, turning away. “I know all about bottling up your feelings to be strong for someone else…”

With that she left medbay as if in a trance. Kaidan traced her path through the window—a beeline across the mess and into her office. It took him another ten minutes to get his test results back from Doctor Chakwas and finish composing himself. Greg had already bandaged his hand and returned to Engineering. When he left the medbay, Tali was standing by the war memorial.

“Kaidan! _Keelah_ , I heard about what happened down there, are you going to be alright?”

“Yeah. My leg’s on the mend, but it’s going to be fine.” He looked up and down the memorial wall, eyelids drooping.

“I can’t imagine seeing Thessia going down like that. I’ve never been there before but… just to imagine the asari—the oldest civilization in the galaxy—“

“It was pretty awful to watch.”

“You’ve seen Earth… and now Thessia. How are you feeling, Kaidan?”

“I’ll be alright Tali.”

“I was so focused on Rannoch when I first came aboard, I didn’t even think to ask you about losing your homeworld… but now watching Liara… I’m so sorry I didn’t ask you sooner.” She rubbed his arm.

“Well, I’d like to think we haven’t ‘lost’ either of them yet.” Kaidan pinched the bridge of his nose.

“…of course.” She patted his arm, “Are you looking for Shepard?”

“Ummm, yeah. I was about to head to the War Room to see if he’s there,” he sighed.

“He’s with Liara right now—Garrus and I asked him to go talk to her, sort of. She’s not doing too well.”

“Oh,” he frowned. “Okay then. I—uh… it’s not that important. I guess… hmm. I guess I’m going to take a walk and see where the crew’s at, see if I can raise morale a little bit.”

“Sounds good,” she said tentatively, “Donnelly and Daniels seemed pretty frazzled a little while ago when I was down in Engineering. Do… you want me to send Shepard your way when he comes out?”

“Umm. I guess… well, no. Nevermind: no. He’ll probably be, uh… busy.” Kaidan shook his head, “I’ll debrief with him in the morning.”

“Are… are you sure? He might be looking to talk too… you know. To you.”

“We’ll catch up.” Kaidan shuffled awkwardly and shook his head.

“Sounds… good…?” she crossed her arms.

 “It’s okay, Tali. I’ll see him at the briefing.”

“O—okay.”

Kaidan lightly touched her arm.

“Thanks, Tali.”

++

Shepard emerged from Liara’s quarters, strode past the lift, receiving a ‘thanks for talking to her’ from Tali with a brief nod before opening the door to the Starboard Observation Lounge.

 It was empty.

His composure bristled. He whirled around and stepped into the Crew Quarters, checked Kaidan’s usual bunk.

He stepped out and marched down the corridor to the Port Observation lounge.

By now his face had settled into a grim mask of frustration. He turned back to the lift.

“Shepard, were you looking for Kaidan?” Tali asked, putting aside her whispered conversation with Garrus over the comms.

“I’m sure he’s doing his Spectre reports, I’ll debrief with him tomorrow,” Shepard grunted, summoning the lift.

“Actually he said he’d be walking around the ship, trying to get morale up.”

“So he could be anywhere on the ship then,” Shepard responded flatly.

“Well… I suppose…” She folded her arms, “Pretty small ship, all told…”

“I know. Sorry, Tali.” The response was clipped, “I should head up to my cabin and try to get some work done.”

 “Okay. Sure.” She sounded skeptical, “Well, if you _do_ want to talk to Kaidan, I’m pretty sure he was headed to Engineering for his first pass at making everyone feel better… if you wanted to try there.”

“Thank you Tali, I’m sure I’ll see you both at the meeting.”

As the lift door closed, Shepard pressed the button to take him down to Engineering.

Sure enough, Kaidan was leaning against a pylon, arms folded across his chest, reminiscing about Liara with Chief Adams. The chief and Kaidan had gotten to talk to Liara already, and both had concluded that she was strong, that she’d be alright. Neither knew about the breakdown she had had with Shepard moments earlier.

Shepard stood close, easing nearer to Kaidan whenever Adams busied himself with his console. Kaidan turned to Shepard, told him they’d kick Kai Leng’s ass on their next encounter. But he kept his arms folded tight across his chest.

Shepard finally turned on his heel and slipped out of Engineering without a word.

++

Kaidan left Engineering and pressed the button to summon the elevator. It was taking a while. Probably coming down from A Deck. At his right, the door to the Port Cargo bay opened and Javik stepped out, looked Kaidan up and down, and seemed to sniff the air.

“Oh. That explains it. Very well, you _should_ be the one to speak to the commander, then.”

He turned back into his steamy room and the door closed behind him. The lift opened and Kaidan headed up to the CIC. As he approached the cockpit, EDI stepped out of the door and walked past him on the gangway.

“EDI, how are you doing?”

“I’m flattered by your concern, Major. I am fine.” And with that she hurried off down the corridor. Kaidan blinked, but continued onto the bridge. Joker didn’t even turn around when Kaidan slid into the co-pilot chair EDI had hastily vacated at his approach.

“Oh, hey, look: another scowling Alliance golden boy on my bridge. I must have won some kind of shitty lottery and no one told me.”

“That was some badass flying between Thessia and the Relay, Joker.” Kaidan stared ahead at the red static wriggling across the external screens. His voice was level, weary.

“It’s my job, I’m not looking for a standing ovation every time. That’s why I’m the best.” Joker all but snapped.

“You are the best, Joker. We owe you our lives.”

“…I guess you can thank me by calming the commander down.”

“He’s pretty worked up, huh?”

“Probably because Anderson told me I should be watching out for him, which is clearly a job you woulda been better for.” He minimized a set of photographs he had been looking through: farm country and a girl with messy hair.

“…On Thessia we watched asari soldiers and civilians die in the hundreds, all fighting because they thought we were going to end the war right there on Thessia. They believed in us and we failed them.”

“Boohoo, I spent that whole time trying to keep Reapers from blowing the ship apart. Unlike the geth, the Reapers don’t seem to have a problem looking out a window. It felt like running away from Earth again, except—“

“Worse.”

“…yeah.”

“Sorry if I seem… a little off.”

Joker shrugged, “Not my business. You’re not here to entertain me. I’m pretty good at keeping myself in a good mood.”

“But I’m here to entertain the commander, huh?” Kaidan pinched the bridge of his nose, smirking.

“Figured it was more like a perk for you.”

“So…” Kaidan sighed, “he just came in and started yelling, or what?” Joker angrily punched at his interface before responding.

“I may or may not have mentioned that if the asari spent more time training soldiers and less time dancing, maybe Thessia would’ve lasted more than 30 hours against the Reapers.”

Kaidan’s brow creased, “I see why he was angry now.” His tone was dangerous.

“Look, I’m not trying to piss anyone off here—“

“Calm down, Jeff.” Kaidan’s sigh didn’t fully melt the scowl from his features, “It’s okay.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down! My family was at—“

“Tiptree. Right?”

“…yeah…” his eyes narrowed at Kaidan.

“I used to sit in this chair pretty often, remember? You talk a lot.”

“Yeah. Well. So like I told Shepard: I’m aware there’s a war going on.”

“I’m sorry about your family, Jeff.” He reached down to massage his swollen leg, wincing at the contact, “When I was in Huerta, I heard some from an asari commando whose unit had responded to the distress signal sent out by the colony. She responded and tried to help some of the farmers.”

“Tiptree? Wh-why were asari commandos responding to an Alliance colony?”

“I guess they thought they could help.”

“What did she say,” Joker blurted, his diagnostics abandoned, “about the colony I mean?”

“She did her best to save people. She was pretty shell-shocked, wouldn’t really talk to me.” He appraised Jeff’s expression, “Sorry I don’t know more.”

Joker looked back to his haptic interface, idly resuming pushing controls despite the fact that the auto-pilot was engaged.

“I hope you can talk to Shepard,” he swallowed after a minute. “EDI’s been monitoring his vitals and… he’s under a lot of stress.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Worse than Akuze, worse than Ilos. I know you guys are close now, and he’s chewing himself up after this mission.” Joker’s voice was strained, and Kaidan nodded quickly.

“Yeah.”

“He’s been through a lot… and…”

He shrugged.

“Yeah.”

“And… we all have…”

“Uh-huh.”

“Kaidan,” Jeff continued to poke at functionless buttons on his interface. “I’ve been meaning to apologize for a while… about Shepard.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was my fault… on the SR-1. He was out for two years because he came back to save me… if he’d been around, maybe we could’ve built up a bigger fleet before the shit hit the fan. Maybe they wouldn’t have taken Earth, or Thessia, or Tiptree…”

“Maybe. Probably we’d all just be even more frustrated and less prepared.” Kaidan tried to smile, but it still came out as weary as before. He rubbed at his temple with a thumb and grimaced.

“Well, at least the two of you would have more time to… stand around looking serious or whatever you guys do while normal people would be having sex.”

“Ha!”

“…but you would’ve had more time at least.” Joker sat back into his chair and stared down into his lap.

“You kept him safe against the Collectors, Jeff. Thank you.” There was a gravity to Kaidan’s thanks, and Jeff looked on for a moment before nodding quietly.

“Well, I guess you owe it to me to get him to calm down some, huh?” He resettled the brim of his cap over his brows, “Have you had a chance to talk to him yet?”

“No.”

“Well get up there, lover-boy!”

“Don’t push it, Joker.”

“Hey, you should be flattered. Even though I was rooting for you guys already, after seeing what Shepard’s like when he can’t find you, I’m _really_ rooting for you now.”

++

Kaidan stood in front of Shepard’s door, hand poised to ring the chime. Instead, heaving a deep sigh, he opened the door and limped straight into the room. Shepard was standing rigid at his console, an open bottle next to the data terminal.

“Shepard.”

“Get a sense of where the crew’s at?” He kept his back to Kaidan at the door, his voice a dangerous parody of his usual amiability.

“Talked to Tali, huh?”

“Yeah, just in passing.” Shepard still didn’t look up from his console, fists clenching and unclenching against the desk.

“How are you doing, Shepard?”

“I’m ready to put the Illusive Man’s head on a spike right next to Kai Leng’s,” he spat.

Neither Kaidan nor Shepard said anything for a moment. Shepard glared at a particular message in his inbox. Kaidan shifted a bit on his sore leg.

“Do you wanna maybe sit and—“

“We were _this_ close, Kaidan!” Shepard pivoted, his face twisted into a helpless rage. “I had that fucker up against a _wall._ I was cutting through his armor like it was tissue-paper. He didn’t lay a goddamn _hand_ on me! Then those gunships brought the whole damn temple down on our heads! He’s a coward—“

“That’s right, Shepard.” Kaidan put up a hand, limped forward, “They all are. But when we catch up with them, there’s gonna be nowhere to run.”

“I’m going to personally take him to pieces.” Shepard’s rage had become a cold and calculated force: he ran his thumb down the bruised side of his face, coding the feeling to memory, as if his finger were the tip of a knife he was running across Kai Leng’s throat. “Rip out those cybernetic eyes of his and make him choke on them.”

“C’mon, Shepard. I wanna get Kai Leng too, but this… this mercenary bullshit? It isn’t you.”

“Maybe this is who I should be, should’ve been from the start. I keep _missing_ my chance to kill these people. The second I had destroyed the Collector base I should’ve lured out the Illusive Man and… and…” Shepard slammed his fist down on the desk.

“You told me you couldn’t see this coming from him.” Kaidan hobbled to keep in front of him when Shepard whirled angrily back around, “He’s indoctrinated, you couldn’t have known. And you’re not an executioner, Ben.”

“And now Thessia is paying the price for that weakness.”

“Weakness!” Kaidan scoffed, “Shepard, I’ve seen you take mercy on some pretty awful people. Because you knew that in the end that would be the most good.”

“It’s weakness because I’m too… _empty_ to recognize justice. Real justice.” Shepard’s tone was miserably icy, “’Eye for an eye’ isn’t justice. I knew that. I’ve spent so much time trying to figure out…” his hand quaked and coiled into a fist, “how people are. But I couldn’t figure out who to protect and who to eliminate. And now?”

“Ben,” Kaidan winced on his leg trying to get in front of Shepard again as he swung around. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You want to do as much good as possible—help as many people as possible. That’s different than just eliminating the threat!”

“—Mordin! Mordin Solus… he had it right,” Ben broke in, unhearing. “Sometimes you heal people, sometimes you eliminate the people who are trying to do them harm. I can’t tell the difference, because I’m too much… too much…” His hand lingered on the desktop, hardcoding to memory.

“Nobody knows where that line is, Ben. And plenty of times you’ve _saved_ the people everyone else thought should be eliminated. Major Kyle, those biotic extremists, all those people who worked for Cerberus?”

“If I hadn’t spared those people,” Shepard whispered, leaning his face into the crook of his arm against the wall, “if I had made colder choices… would that have prepared me to do what I should have done today? If I could sacrifice those terrorists and those criminals to be used to making the choices that would’ve save millions of good people today…”

“Ben… stop.” Kaidan strode up and put a hand on Shepard’s shoulder, and Ben flinched under the pressure and whipped around. “You’re a good man. You’re not empty, or cold. Those acts of mercy… that’s part of why I fell for you. So if you’re gonna convince me that you made the wrong choice back then… I just can’t believe it, Ben.”

“Then it’s time for a change,” Shepard seethed. “Kai Leng… The Illusive Man… they’re not going to know what hit them. They’re going to see a different side of me than they were expecting. No more weakness. No more failure.” He shrugged out from under Kaidan’s touch.

 “That’s what’s really bothering you, isn’t it? You’re angry at Cerberus, but you’re more angry at yourself. You—“

“I told those people we could end this war! And I believed it!” Shepard stormed down into the living quarters with Kaidan limping behind him, trying to stay close. “And why shouldn’t they believe the Great Commander Shepard is going to save the day? He _always_ saves the day! He’s the Savior of the Citadel! But the one time it really matters, the one time I have a chance to end this war forever, I fail. I fail because of the organization that helped bring me back from the brink of death. Because of some wash-out N7 and his cheap-shot gunship!”

“I was there, Ben, you did everything you could—“

“It doesn’t matter if I did everything I could! I still failed those people. It’s never bothered me, that pressure. Why is it bothering me now? What’s happening to me?” He held up a hand when Kaidan opened his mouth to speak, “I am trying to save the galaxy. I am _trying_ to live up to the way everyone is looking at me. I can’t explain what that feels like!” Shepard was yelling now, his eyes wild. “I can’t make you feel that, I can’t make you feel the _loss_ like I do.”

“What did you just say to me? Can’t make me understand the loss?” Kaidan took a step into Shepard’s face, “I watched the Reapers rip through my childhood home. My parents live at ground zero for the Reaper invasion, Shepard. My family. My dad’s already AWOL—no, who am I kidding. He’s _dead_ , Shepard. The young, bright kids I was training to be world-class soldiers are in the thick of it, dying every day. These aren’t just people to me, Ben. These are my friends, my _family_!” He took a step back, then scowled and jabbed a finger into Shepard’s chest, “I made promises, too. Don’t pretend like I don’t understand what it means to lose this war, and _don’t_ pretend like your crew doesn’t get the spill-over of all those expectations.”

Shepard took a step after Kaidan when he wheeled away, but kept the distance between them instead. He covered his eyes with his hand, “I’m… sorry Kaidan. I don’t know why I was talking like that.”

“I do,” Kaidan retorted, his tone softening. “You’re doubting yourself, and all of that’s coming out as anger.”

When Shepard removed his hand from his face, his brow was lined with exhaustion. His hand balled at his side, anxious, as if he were afraid to approach.

“I… was looking for you after I talked to Liara.” His voice was small, thick with fatigue. “I needed someone to talk to.” Kaidan sighed and closed the distance.

 “I’m here now.” He folded his arms around Shepard, who held him tenuously, “Talk to me.”

“I don’t really know what I was going to say.” It was barely a whisper.

“Maybe just needed to be with someone, huh?”

“Not just someone.” The arms around Kaidan’s waist found their strength and pulled him in.

“Do you remember when you told me: ‘sometimes the best we can do won’t feel like enough, but it’s all we’ve got’? You said that to me right before… well. Right before that first time we met in Apollo’s.”

“Yeah,” Shepard rested his forehead on Kaidan’s shoulder, “I remember.”

“I’m here for you when it doesn’t feel good enough, you know that, right?”

“I know. Just like always.” Shepard’s breathing grew steady once again.

“I’m going to get us both a drink, okay?” Kaidan pulled away and limped up the steps to grab the open bottle by Shepard’s terminal.

“You’re limping.” Shepard had followed him up the step and was looking at his leg with concern.

“Leg got fractured in three places when that gunship brought the temple down.”

“What!?”

“Think I’d let you beat me to the shuttle without a handicap?” Kaidan smiled, but Shepard’s features did not soften.

“I… I didn’t even notice.”

“Yeah, well, you had other things on your mind. Like the fate of the whole galaxy and stuff.”

“Guess I’ve been a pretty terrible boyfriend today.”

“Mm. You had more important things to be.”

“Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to be…” Shepard paused and gently took Kaidan’s chin between thumb and forefinger, “I shouldn’t ever be that oblivious to my squad.” He kissed Kaidan apologetically. Kaidan smiled, but it was still tarnished with weariness. “You’ve got a headache too, huh?” he asked as he rubbed a thumb across Kaidan’s temple.

“Sure thing. Most of the day.” Kaidan leaned his forehead against Shepard’s, but a moment later Shepard was guiding him over to the couch. He sat in the corner, guiding Kaidan to rest his head on Shepard’s lap. After warming his hands with a few puffs of breath, he dusted his fingertips over Kaidan’s eyes before delicately massaging his temples.

“This okay?”

“Yeah.” Kaidan sighed, “Wish I could stay longer and enjoy it.”

“We’ve both got work to do before we get to Horizon.” Shepard softly combed his fingers through the gray flecks in Kaidan’s hair, rubbing his knuckles over the crown of his scalp. “Where does it hurt?”

“Kinda hurts everywhere, but keep doing what you’re doing.”

“…How is the crew?”

“They’re ready for the next fight. Everyone’s behind you for this Shepard. A couple are a little worried about you. I guess you and Joker had a bit of a tiff, huh?”

“I suppose I’ll need to make it up to him sometime.” Shepard sighed, massaging Kaidan’s jawline with his thumbs. Kaidan closed his eyes and shifted his head in Shepard’s lap to allow him more access to his neck.

“He’s more worried about you than anything.”

“He was saying Anderson told him to take care of me.”

“Yeah, and he told _me_ that I had been slacking in that department.”

“He what?”

“Can’t say I can disagree with him though. I’m supposed to be up here giving you a pep talk and instead I’m lying on your couch getting a head massage.”

Shepard made something like a grunted laugh in his throat, “It feels good that I can do something to help… someone at least.”

“Bah! You don’t believe that, and neither does anyone.”

“If I didn’t believe that a little bit, you wouldn’t need to be here trying to cheer me up.”

“I’d need to be here for other reasons though,” Kaidan said in a raspy whisper.

“Hmmm. In that case, I wish we could’ve talked before I stomped around the ship scaring half of my crew.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. It’s hard to see you suffering like this. Plus, you were a little intimidating.”

“I should save that for the Reapers, not my own crew.” Shepard’s shoulders slumped as he continued to knead Kaidan’s temples softly.

“Honestly, Shepard? I try to step back when you’re in ‘Commander’ mode. I don’t want to confuse the chain of command any more than it already is. And… well. In here we can talk about anything. But when you’re ‘Commander Shepard’, it’s a different story.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I dunno, Shepard… everyone out there knows you blame yourself for letting Cerberus get hold of the Catalyst. But I look at you and I see more. I stood there in the ruins of that temple, watching the Reapers come down out of the sky like they did on Earth. Feeling powerless—not because the Alliance wouldn’t believe you like on Earth—but powerless even though you had every resource.  Thought about you listening to all those people die over radio… again…” He stared deeply into Shepard’s eyes, “I know things about you, Shepard. And when you’re in ‘Commander’ mode, I can’t just walk up to you on the shuttle and say ‘This isn’t Akuze’, or ‘It’s not like that time with the Reds’. I can’t walk up to you and hold you to calm you down. All I can do is just say something like ‘You did all you could. You’ll get ‘em next time.’ Even though I know that doesn’t really help.”

Shepard stared into Kaidan’s eyes, rubbed his shoulders and down his arms, “Kaidan, I know I have to put on a strong front for the crew. There are a lot of people depending on me, and winning this war is everything. But having you here… having a shoulder to lean on. It means a lot to me.”

“I know, Ben. I know.” Kaidan sat up and leaned in to kiss Shepard, then stood. “I’m going to get to my bunk. You should get some sleep. We don’t have much time before we get to Horizon. I’ll handle all the Spectre reports. Given the state of things, the Council hasn’t been complaining about getting only one report from our mission.”

“Kaidan?” he held onto his hand as Kaidan turned to walk away. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry”

“You’re forgiven,” Kaidan smiled.

“I… well… I wish you could stay tonight.” Ben sighed and stood, “Take something for that headache, okay?”

“Will do, I’ll be taking some pain-killers for this leg anyhow.”

“Why don’t I believe that you’re actually going to take anything?” He rolled his eyes.

“Because you know me.” He smirked into Shepard’s shoulder as he pulled him in for a hug.

“Yeah. And I worry about you, too.”

“I worry about you too, Ben. But I’m gonna be alright, and so are you. You’re gonna save the galaxy, and I’ll be with you when you do.” He pressed a kiss into Shepard’s hair, and Ben clung to his shoulder’s for a long moment before sighing. His back straightened: a soldier slipping back into his training. But as Kaidan stepped away, Shepard softly kissed his hand.

“Goodnight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Sanctuary. Kaidan and Shepard talk scars.


	22. The Difference between Forgiving and Forgetting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan and Shepard return to Horizon. After helping Miranda save her sister and put a stop to her father, Kaidan reflects on Sanctuary, anger, and all the scars he and Shepard have earned and lost on the way.

“Let’s make sure everybody knows about this place,” Shepard said grimly, turning off the Cerberus scrambling signal. Miranda’s voice rang out through the Sanctuary compound one final time:

_Listen to me: this is not a refugee camp. This is a Cerberus facility run by my father, Henry Lawson._

The message was sent to the Relay comm buoy to repeat. And one by one the computers in the tower laboratory began to shut down.

“Cortez,” Shepard said into his comms, “We need a pick up at the tower.”

_“Roger that.”_

“…I’ve had enough of this place,” Without the hum and click of the computer terminals, the lab was eerily quiet. Kaidan and Liara stood stoically near the main interface, sorting through whatever last pieces of data they could get their hands on.

From the edge of the shattered window, Shepard could just make out the dark shape of Henry Lawson’s body on the gangway far below. The ground around him was littered with the disintegrating corpses of the Husks they had battled to reach the control room.

There was a hiss of a door seal, and the pressure in the room changed. Shepard turned just as Kaidan stepped out into the pale sunlight streaming through an exterior door. Liara and Shepard followed him out onto a wide balcony—not luxurious and wide like the decoy buildings had, but really more of a terrace running the width of the tower allowing emergency roof access via ladders bolted to the building. This was the Illusive Man’s way: the trap set for the refugees was beautiful, but Cerberus was all business at its core.

The air outside was sweet: Horizon in summer with its fragrant grasses, even more potent in the intensely oxygenated atmosphere. The sun was high overhead, a soft light through a few wisps of cloud. There was a shimmer in the distance that might’ve been the sea.

“It’s a beautiful world,” Liara said, leaning on the railing next to Kaidan.

“Some view,” Shepard swallowed, stood back a pace.

“People will come back here one day. Even after everything they’ve been through.” Liara finally holstered her pistol.

Kaidan let out a shaking sigh, shoulders rising and falling in an irregular pattern beneath his armor. Shepard was watching him intently from under a crumpled brow, fingers at his side, gently running his thumb along a hairline crack in his thigh-plate.

“Kaidan?” Shepard said softly. But Kaidan scarcely reacted, shaking his head without turning around. He walked away without another word towards the far side of the terrace.

“Should we… go talk to him?” Liara said at Shepard’s side.

“No. He’ll need a little time to process all of this. He… was stationed here. Briefly, but…” Shepard rubbed the back of his neck, “It hurts to always be late. To be reminded…”

Liara merely nodded and they gave Kaidan his space, walking to the opposite end of the balcony. The whole western side of the Sanctuary compound lay before them. The sound of the trees came up on the wind, and Liara pointed into the distance, where the forest was a deep and mesmerizing green. The facility had been planned to be much larger: acres of land had been cleared and leveled to accommodate what was probably intended to be a large refugee settlement. Virtually everything beyond the main welcome and staffing compound was nothing but a large grassy plain, however. Abandoned shuttles dotted the landscape. Many of the more recent shuttles had the bodies of refugees spilling out of crumpled hatches.

“How could I not know about this place?” Liara whispered.

“You can’t blame yourself.” Shepard’s voice was a level monotone—avoiding looking at her as he spoke, instead peering across the terrace at where Kaidan stood staring off into the east.

“I’d known about Sanctuary for months now. The advertisement were everywhere. I even tried sending agents to get inside…” she shook her head. “I should have known by how difficult it was that it had to be Cerberus. I finally called them off, if it was a real sanctuary, I didn’t want to risk my agents being captured by the Reapers… Only the Illusive Man has the resources to hide a place like this from me. ”

“We’ll get him. We’ll make him pay,” Shepard said under his breath, watching the way Kaidan leaned his head into his hands.

“If only I’d been more decisive…”

“No, Liara,” Shepard cut in, “Don’t go down that road.” She sighed, but nodded slowly.

“The infrastructure here, it’s massive,” she waved her hand over the scene ruefully. “Do you suppose Lawson or the Illusive Man built this all by himself, or just co-opted it?”

“Was there ever a real Sanctuary, you mean?”

She nodded, “Either way, it would have taken years.”

“All the while I was working with Cerberus...”

“Yes.” She leaned onto the railing. At the other side of the balcony, Kaidan ran a hand through his hair. Shepard mirrored the action. “I’m an archeologist, Shepard. Answering questions that shouldn’t be able to be answered is my life’s work. But when I see what Cerberus has been doing, I don’t even want to think about it anymore.”

“We have to,” Shepard seethed quietly. The force with which Kaidan was gripping the railing was visible all the way across the balcony. “We can’t forget atrocities like this. Especially not committed by our own people. We need to remember what we’re capable of when we’re afraid—we don’t need Reapers to destroy us.”

“Exactly,” Liara sighed. “Do you suppose Henry Lawson has been working with Cerberus all along? When Miranda escaped her father and came to work for the Illusive Man, was that part of the plan? Part of the Illusive Man’s arrangement to guarantee Lawson’s cooperation? By helping Cerberus… were we—was I supporting this?”

“I… don’t know.” Shepard breathed, turning his head as Cortez shuttle raised up from outside the tower’s jamming range and made for their position.

“The Illusive Man, is he indoctrinated, I wonder? Henry Lawson? I was speaking with Javik the other day. He told me that during the Prothean war with the Reapers, there was a similar organization that also sold its people to the Reapers. They were indoctrinated.” She turned to look at Shepard, who still peered down the terrace at Kaidan back. Kaidan himself was still standing tense, the wind softly combing through his hair. “I hope the Illusive Man is indoctrinated. I don’t want to live in a universe where a man can experiment, kill, and sell his own people. For power, out of fear…”

“I’m not sure if he’s indoctrinated. Or just evil…” Shepard’s voice was low and dangerous, “but we _live_ in that universe, Liara. The history of my planet and a hundred other planets is full of that kind of cruelty.”

“I suppose you’re right. I had hoped that, given the stakes…” She lightly scratched her collarbone. “But I suppose that’s naïve.”

“All we can do now,” Shepard watched intently as Kaidan leaned against the railing, “Is concentrate on the people we care about. The innocents. Those people need us.”

She looked over her shoulder, traced Shepard’s gaze to where Kaidan stood.

“You’re right. After all,” she smiled, “you have Kaidan now. And I have a father I just discovered. Watching Miranda kill her father…” she paused, “it made me think about my mother. I know that Miranda and her father didn’t have the relationship Benezia and I had, but it isn’t an easy thing to have to kill your parent.”

“Yeah,” Shepard frowned. “I don’t think he needed to be indoctrinated to be as terrible as he was.”

“I can’t blame Miranda for not needing consoling, then.”

 “Liara,” he said after a beat, so quiet his voice was almost lost in the wind, “You said the computer’s data core had been wiped. Is there any way to retrieve that data?”

“Other than the shuttle manifests and logs, no. For what?” She raised herself to her full height.

“Anything that might help us reverse the process of indoctrination,” he swallowed. “Or detect if someone was becoming indoctrinated.”

Liara stared for a minute, “It seems indoctrination can’t be cured, as far as we know. I’ve seen the research on it. Council scientists are in the dark about how the process works. As far as detection: Vendetta, Vigil… the Prothean VIs clearly have a way to detect an indoctrination field. If we can recover Vendetta…?”

“Dammit,” Shepard growled.

“Why?”

“It’s nothing,” he said as the shuttle rose up next to the balcony. Liara climbed up and Shepard followed. As he was easing back into the crash seat, he looked up: only Liara and he had entered the shuttle.

Kaidan stood, still, at the east end of the balcony—unmoving despite the loud shuttle hovering nearby, ready to take them away. Shepard waved Liara back into the shuttle and stepped down onto the balcony, slowly approaching and putting a hand on Kaidan’s shoulder.

“Looks like I beat you to the shuttle again,” he tried in a good-natured tone.

Kaidan said nothing.

“Kaidan,” Shepard swallowed, “Talk to me?”

Kaidan didn’t turn, eyes narrowed, surveying the silent landscape below.

“Who’s going to come for the bodies?” he whispered.

“…what?”

“The people… that didn’t make it. All those shuttles down there that crashed—they’re everywhere. All the people that died before they were turned into husks. Who’s coming for them? Who’s going to bury them?” He shrugged, “No one. That’s who. Every resource in the galaxy is focused on beating the Reapers. And all these bodies—these _people_ —are just going to rot here. Whole families. No one’s going to mourn them, miss them.”

“…but we’ll know.” Shepard stood shoulder to shoulder with Kaidan.

“We fight and fight and don’t have any time to bury the dead.”

“We do what we can.”

“On Eden Prime… years ago, After Ash and I carried you back to the ship, I led the detail to go and retrieve Jenkins’ body to send him home. Nihlus too.” He gripped the railing once again, “Last time I was on this planet, I searched for anyone I could find after the Collector attack. But then Earth happened—and we had to grab the Normandy and get out. Seeing people in the rubble. On Thessia. Now again. My god. There’s hundreds of people down there, Shepard.”

“…we’ll… umm,” Shepard shook his head, helpless.

“No, Shepard. Sorry. There’s nothing to be done.” His turned, surveyed the shuttle with a detached expression. “I can’t even be sad about it right now. I’m just so… angry. Makes me feel… inhuman.”

“You’re always there for me. Especially after Thessia when I needed you most. You know I’m here for you?” Ben tangled his fingers between Kaidan’s, and the grip was firm.

“I’m going to need some time. I just… need to figure out how I relate to all this. Come by later on.”

He pulled his hand away from Shepard’s, but he put his hand on Ben’s shoulder instead, leaning his weight against him for a moment. The two soldiers boarded the shuttle, and left Horizon behind.

++

Later, Shepard sat in his cabin and stared at his terminal, the days-old taunt from Kai Leng still sitting at the top of his messages—read and reread over and over since Thessia. Directly below it: orders to return to the Citadel for mandatory shore leave and a tune-up on the Normandy. With Traynor’s help on the QEC, Alliance HQ expected to have decrypted the location of the Illusive Man’s base within 72 hours, but massing the fleet required to take the station would take weeks.

Shepard rubbed his hand over his eyes, flipped the screen off. He turned out the lights to finish undressing in the glow of the aquarium before sliding into bed. For almost an hour, he lay staring up at the stars and the static-wash pulsing over his skylight. Out in an undiscovered corner of the galaxy, the Illusive Man was closer than ever to destroying any chances humanity had at defeating the Reapers. Kai Leng—snaking around the universe, an indoctrinated puppet—was a dark mirror of what the Illusive Man had intended for Shepard. Horizon was a lifeless world out in the darkness. The crime was unimaginable, but with the tracer Miranda had placed on Leng and Traynor sorting through the data, his mood had slowly turned to encouraged.

No so with Kaidan.

He’d heated his usual post-mission pouch of protein supp and scarfed it down while filling out his report. Shepard came upon him sitting alone in the mess and sat silently with him. Afterwards, Kaidan retreated to the Starboard Observation Lounge. Shepard himself had pored over the tactical reports from Sanctuary for a long time, effectively skipping his usual post-mission tour of the ship to speak with his crew: since the Normandy SR-1, Kaidan had always been his first conversation once things were settled.  When Shepard had finally wandered into the Lounge as Kaidan’s duty shift was wrapping up, the talk he’d had with Kaidan had been stilted. He nodded in understanding when Kaidan expressed how enraged he was. When things fell silent once again, he’d left without another word. He’d sat reading mission briefings. He’d read Kai Leng’s letter again.

Shepard huffed, shifted again in his bed, eyes locked on the skylight above. The orange holo-clock glowed across the empty expanse of the other side of the mattress when he rolled to his side. He yawned, sliding his limbs beneath the smooth blankets there and shimmied over to Kaidan’s side of the bed, burying his face in Kaidan’s pillow.

Still lying awake after another 30 minutes, Ben kicked the blankets off and got up from the bed. He nudged his dirty uniform into the corner with a toe and instead fished into his drawers to draw out the worn N7 hoodie Kaidan had found a few weeks ago. Kaidan had taking to wearing it during their protein supp post-mission dinners in the loft, and so Shepard slipped into the sleeves reverently.

Immediately, the frown that had been weighing down his brow since his aborted conversation with Kaidan earlier lifted. And, when he pulled on a pair of uniform pants, his eyebrows shot up. He pulled at the strangely tight fabric at his thighs and against his rear.

Shucking them down, he almost laughed aloud when he looked at the detail on the pant cuffs: they’d been hemmed by hand. The work was so skillfully done as to be almost undetectable, but Shepard felt the seams with his thumb and smiled immediately. They were fully tailored, in fact—the seat taken in as well for a better fit. These were Kaidan’s pants.

Though he and Shepard wore the same standard size of Alliance uniform, Kaidan’s clean tailoring was obvious. Shepard slid them back up his legs, feeling the tight fabric around his legs with his hands before zipping his hoodie. He chuckled, tried a few lunges in the pants, feeling the unfamiliar stretch. On the way out, he made for the mirror, but rolled his eyes at the door to the bathroom and went straight to the lift with a rueful chuckle.

The mess was deserted, the majority of Normandy’s officers either in bed or crunching data recovered from Sanctuary. Shepard spent minutes standing outside the closed crew quarters, pinching the bridge of his nose and rolling his eyes every time he made to step towards the door. Kaidan wasn’t working a duty shift tonight, and given his usual habit he would’ve been in bed for hours by now.

In the end, Shepard sighed with resignation, hooked his thumbs into his pockets and moseyed into the Starboard Observation Lounge.

“Hey, Shepard.”

Shepard’s face lit up when he saw Kaidan sitting in the lounge chair near the book case.

“Hey there.”

“Couldn’t sleep?” Kaidan’s voice was a soft and sleepy rasp.

“No.”

“Something on your mind?”

“Been thinking about Cerberus, still thinking about what we saw at Sanctuary.” Hands in his pockets, he strode up to Kaidan’s side, “Then I got in bed and all I could really think about was you.”

“Hmm.” Kaidan gave him a half-smile, but his ears turned pink at the compliment, “You’re cute sometimes, Shepard.”

Shepard sat down on the edge of the chair next to Kaidan’s hip, placing a hand on Kaidan’s leg, “What’s got you awake at this hour?”

“Couldn’t even imagine going to sleep after what we saw down there.” But Kaidan’s head tipped back against the head-rest, eyes half-lidded looking up at Ben. “I keep seeing the faces of everyone I saw come through Huerta who was headed to Sanctuary to be safe. I thought they were idiots, Shepard, but they didn’t deserve that.”

“No. No one deserves that.”

“So yeah. Thought I would try to do some reading, but… I’m too distracted to. Been reading the same line over and over. Tried looking at the stars, but that just made me feel… lonely. So now I’m just sitting.”

“Lonely, huh?” Shepard placed his hand on Kaidan’s chest, feeling the soft rise and fall of his even breathing. Kaidan placed his hand over Ben’s.

“Shepard, I need to… well. I’m ready to cut the Illusive Man out of the universe like the tumor he is, but I gotta know something.”

“Uh oh,” Shepard smirked, but swallowed. “Okay, let’s have it.”

“Truth is, Shepard… Ben...” he sighed, “I hate Cerberus—always have. Meeting some of their operatives made me hate them even more, using good people for bad ends… I dunno. Maybe they weren’t all doing mad science all the time and some of the cells were doing good work. But honestly, if they hadn’t saved you… My life would be very different. All of us… we wouldn’t have stood a chance. I hate that I owe that son-of-a-bitch for saving your life. I wanna know: do you feel like you owe Cerberus? The Illusive Man?”

“Kaidan, when the time comes I’m going to bring the Illusive Man to justice, whatever the cost.” Shepard’s brow furrowed.

Kaidan took Shepard’s hand in both of his to soothe him, “I know Shepard. I know. I really do. And I trust you more than anyone.” His voice had become a whisper, “Please. I just want to know how you feel… about what I just said.”

“No.” Ben shook his head, “The Illusive Man spent two years bringing me back, gave me resources, introduced me to people who would become my friends. But he brought me back because he thought I could help humanity. And now the best thing to help humanity is to put an end to Cerberus once and for all. If he didn’t see that coming, he didn’t know what he was dealing with. I don’t owe him anymore than that.”

“Okay.” Kaidan’s face was placid, “Now, when I see the Illusive Man, I’m not gonna have any problem putting that ruthless asshole in the ground. And I’m gonna sleep like a baby.”

“I think not so long ago you were trying to talk me down from saying the same kind of stuff about Kai Leng.” Shepard was smiling again, but his eyes searched Kaidan’s.

Kaidan chuckled, a low hollow sound, “Well, I’m not gonna mount his head on a spike,” the smile slid from his face, “And I didn’t know then what I know now. This isn’t personal for me, Shepard. Those people are demanding justice.”

“Liara asked me if I thought he’s indoctrinated. But I don’t know,” Shepard brought Kaidan’s hand to his lips, kissing it softly. “He thinks he’s doing what’s best for humanity. But so did Saren.”

“Any plan that isn’t about saving lives isn’t the right plan,” Kaidan said, jaw tightening again. “He’s killing people to learn how to control the Reapers. To indoctrinate people of his own.”

“It’s wrong. No question.” Shepard paused for a moment, looking into Kaidan’s eyes with a sigh, “What if he’s found a way to reverse indoctrination, though?”

“Ben, could you really use that research?”

“I don’t know.” Shepard shrugged, “There’s no ‘cure.’ Think of the people we could have saved and had in this fight: Matriarch Benezia, maybe even the Illusive Man himself.”

“Still—“

“—and indoctrination is powerful and it’s subtle,” Shepard said, back stiffening. “We’ve been around the Reapers long enough…”

Kaidan’s face fell, “Damn, Ben. This… is this really bothering you?” He sat up, cupping Shepard’s cheek.

“If I think I’m accomplishing the mission but I’m actually serving the Reapers, then I’m useless,” Shepard replied in a monotone.

“…so it’s all about the mission, huh?” Kaidan quirked an eyebrow.

Ben lowered his head at that, “I’ve got to. I can’t be overcome by the emotion of that tragedy.”

“Yeah,” Kaidan stroked his thumb across Ben’s cheek-bone. “I know when you have to be ‘Commander Shepard.’”

“...on Thessia, when we were watching the city burn, you told Liara she needed to hold onto her anger. Is that what keeps you going?”

Shepard’s expression had petrified to one of grim seriousness. Kaidan stared back, his brow heavy over his piercing eyes.

“No… Sometimes? I don’t know. I have a lot of… anger in my life, Shepard. Maybe it’s because of how I was when I was a kid, maybe it’s all the crap that happened since then. I keep… I try to learn from my mistakes. But, seeing what the universe is… the things we’ve seen! I see beauty and impossible wonders every day, and I see the horrible things too. The more of the fantastic I see out here, the more I see different species working together and the more I see life… just moving on… well. It makes me hate the evil things we see all the more. If I could just sit back and enjoy everything this universe has to offer, I would. I really would. But I’m an Alliance man, and I have to do something to protect those people, to rid the galaxy of that evil when I find it.”

“Forgive but never forget, huh?”

“Makes me sound like a bastard when you put it that way.” Kaidan smiled just a little.

“Only if I didn’t know you.”

“But, I dunno, maybe you’re right. Gotta remember how I felt at the time so I know if I’ve moved on or not. Also makes it hard when, y’know, I can’t forget that those fuckers at Cerberus brought you back to me.” He kissed Shepard’s hand, “Good as new. Well, except for all the faulty cybernetics.”

“They’re not all faulty, I hope,” Shepard smiled as he leaned into Kaidan’s touch against his cheek. “Otherwise I’m in trouble.”

“When I saw you on Horizon last year, your face looked like hell. You looked way more like a mad science project.”

“The scars faded after a while,” he murmured.

Kaidan quirked an eyebrow, “Never did quite understand that…”

“The cybernetics stimulate growth of the organs they replace… or something.” He guided Kaidan’s hand along his jaw where a gaping orange scar used to be over a year ago. “Chakwas says that positive thought patterns help them generate better. According to Miranda, almost all of my skin was artificially grown and surgically replaced.”

“That’s… honestly kind of troubling. I wondered about that; when I first met you, you had a scar,” he ran his index finger along an imaginary line on Shepard’s forehead, “right here.”

Shepard felt the spot himself, “I did. From Akuze. Someone was firing their rifle blindly, grazed my head, landed two slugs in my side. Didn’t get to a dermal regenerator in time to keep it from scarring. All my old scars are gone now.”

“Wait, really?”

“Ever since I woke up in that Cerberus Lab.” Shepard leaned away from Kaidan’s hands and lifted up the hem of his hoodie, revealing the contours of his stomach. He brushed his fingers over one of his abdominals, flexing to bring them to prominence to find the spot. “Used to have one here: piece of shrapnel lodged into me during an explosion back when I was a kid.” He hiked the sweatshirt higher, inscribing a line that arced across his pectorals from sternum to collarbone. “Used to be a big white line here from a knife fight when I was a Lieutenant.”

Kaidan placed a hand on Shepard’s bare chest, as if might feel the line of the nonexistent scar if he rubbed his hands across the planes of Ben’s torso slowly enough. His fingers traced the valleys of his muscles down to his belly.

“Yeah, definitely no scars there.” Kaidan smirked slyly. Still holding up his hoodie, Shepard grinned back and stood up, stretching the right side of his body and indicating the clean skin near the small of his back.

“This was actually where that Rachni burned me on Noveria? Used to be a giant skin graft.”

“Hmmm.” Kaidan was not staring at the indicated spot, “Ben, your butt looks awesome tonight.” Shepard laughed and lowered his hoodie.

“These are your pants.”

“Oh… Oh! I wondered why one of my uniform pants weren’t fitting right!”

“You must’ve grabbed mine by mistake that one night… when…” he raised an eyebrow.

“Where I had to get dressed and run down to the CIC in order to make my shift?” Kaidan chuckled awkwardly and rubbed his neck.

“Yeah, probably that.” Shepard grinned and sat back on the side of the chair. He leaned in close, staring into Kaidan’s eyes, running the tip of his finger down the hair-thin scar over Kaidan’s lip. “Speaking of scars, tell me about this.”

“Oh,” Kaidan smiled beneath Shepard’s finger, “Kicked by a class bully playing hockey when I was a kid. I forget it’s there sometimes.”

“I think about it a lot.” Shepard said, leaning over to kiss Kaidan on the mouth, his tongue teasing at the corner of Kaidan’s lips.

“Shepard!” Kaidan sputtered with a laugh, “We’re in the damn lounge!”

He grinned, “Come on, let’s give those stars another look,” Shepard offered a hand to pull Kaidan out of his chair and walked ahead to sit on the couch facing the window. He smiled when Kaidan sat hip-to-hip with him. “Feeling a little less lonely?”

“Yeah.” He settled his weight against Shepard’s side. “I’m glad you came down tonight, Ben.”

“Me too.” He slipped an arm around Kaidan’s shoulders, who this time didn’t protest. Shepard nuzzled Kaidan’s hair, kissing his temple, “So. Any other scars worth telling stories about?”

“Just the different surgical scars all over my head from surgeries, my implant… getting my head bashed into a shuttle by a robot. But my hair covers most of that up.”

Shepard pressed his cheek against the softness of Kaidan’s hair.

“How long have you been hiding this salt and pepper look?” he murmured. “It’s handsome. If I’d seen this back on the first Normandy, I probably wouldn’t have been so reserved.”

“Heh, gray hairs started cropping up a year ago? Dyed it for a while, but then I said ‘screw it’” The coarseness of the two men’s stubble rubbed together and they pulled apart “The world’s ending. And we can’t all get the Cerberus Spa Treatment, get all of our skin regrown and come back two years later looking good as new.”

“That’s not fair, I got hideous facial scars!”

Kaidan turned and gently took Shepard’s face in his hands and turned it back and forth with a scrutinizing eye. “Gone now. Doesn’t count.”

Shepard smirked and touched Kaidan’s face, becoming momentarily distracted by the sight of his own hands, “Well, I guess they never got around to my hands.” Shepard’s hands were calloused, but beneath that, the skin was marked with many tiny white scars, the finger bones beneath more gnarled than Kaidan ever suspected when he felt the gentleness of the man’s touch, or the firmness of his grip. “All the times I broke my hands open fighting for the Reds. Guess I’m still me, huh?”

“Still you.” Kaidan kissed his hands slowly, each and every scar.

“I’m glad they’re still there. I’d hate to have nothing to remember those fights by.”

“You wouldn’t rather forget them if you could?”

“Forgive. Never forget.”

“Okay, wise ass.” Kaidan pecked Shepard’s cheek, “I love your scars, all of ‘em.”

“I love your gray.”

“Ha!” He laid his head on Shepard’s shoulder, “We’re getting old, aren’t we Shepard?”

“Aging gracefully, at least.” He grinned when Kaidan leaned up to kiss him before settling back onto his shoulder and yawning.

“…I read the order from Hackett.” Kaidan said quietly, eyes drooping closed, “Mandatory upgrades. Mandatory shore leave.”

“Yeah…”

“What’re you gonna do?”

“…I can’t stand thinking that a week of shore leave is outrageous when so many people are dying…” Shepard breathed. The stars floated by outside the window, and the heating vents in the lounge turned off. In the silence of the room, only his and Kaidan’s breath stirred the air. “But this crew needs a break after everything we’ve seen. I can’t deny that it’ll do me some good, either…”

“But,” Kaidan yawned, “We’re not headin back to the Citadel, are we?”

“I’m pretending to ignore the order,” Shepard chuckled mirthlessly. “We have a loose end to tie up.”

“Leviathan?”

“Leviathan.”

“You _do_ need a break, Ben. Take it easy with this Leviathan mission, okay?” Kaidan murmured, lifting his head to look Ben in the eye. Whispered: “I’m looking forward to spending some time with you.”

 “C’mon,” Ben grinned against Kaidan’s lips, “I want to take you to bed. There’s a view of the stars through the skylight. And it’s pretty lonely up there without you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> N7: Communication Hub  
> Despoina, Leviathan.


	23. The Difference between Victory and Its Cost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despoina. Shepard confronts Leviathan and escapes back to the surface just as his doubts catch up to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art by OpalLight, been waiting a while to get this chapter posted so I could share this art.

 

 **“We will fight,”** Leviathan said, reappearing behind Shepard—by the time he had turned, it was again Ann Bryson’s form speaking with the ancient creature’s voice. **“But not for you, or any lesser race. We were the first—the apex race. We will survive.”**

The air around Shepard trembled, the darkness beyond the edges of his vision teaming with the wrath of the Leviathan.

 **“The Reapers who trespass on this world will understand our power. They will become our slaves.”** Ann said, eyes at once strangely void of life yet brimming with an exercised and white-hot fury. **“Today, they pay their tribute in blood.”**

There was a ringing in the darkness.

He was back in the submersible suit.

Shepard’s head snapped back so hard it collided with the back of the cockpit with a thud. The pressure and power reserve klaxons were sounding, the haptic displays flashing.

Outside, the light streaming up from the ocean floor far below illuminated not one, but three Leviathan—their compound and beady eyes a reflection of the poise and hatred of the faces they had worn from Shepard’s memory.

Shepard was dazed for only a moment, squinting against the flare of the interface as he rerouted power to the emergency thrusters. The computer had already turned off the air filtering and temperature regulatory systems, and the alien ocean had sapped the heat from the suit. The system clock indicated that Shepard had been unconscious for a long time, and his own hardsuit computer was warning that his body was going into shock.

He pawed at the thruster controls.

In front of him, the water quaked: the three Leviathan staring down. The onboard computer spoke:

_Thrusters firing in 5…_

Shepard finally found the button to cancel the alarms.

_4…_

Shivering from spine to fingertips, he pulled back hard on the control sticks—further away from Leviathan. He winced.

_3…_

He was breathing heavy, each shuddering gasp spattering blood from his nose onto his chin.

_2…_

The suit stumbled backwards, a cloud of dust kicked up to obscure the sight before him. Their eyes alone piercing through the haze like a nightmare.

_1…_

He grit his teeth.

_Thrusters: fire._

The suit bent its knees.

And then Shepard was forced down as the thruster rocket catapulted the metal towards the surface.

The columns of ancient stone—weathered by millennia of freezing currents—glowed orange in the light of the rocket, and Shepard rose through the midst of the submarine monoliths as if they were a cathedral. The Leviathan were massive, huge bodies heaving as Shepard glided upwards. Scaled, strangely proportioned: the orange glow of the booster jets seemed not to illuminate them, and this alone distinguished them from the cold blues and greens of the surrounding rock…

…that and the quaking water that surrounded them—the sight of them made Shepard buck forward and grip his head. Far beneath—shadows rising up from the deep pool of light another 2000 meters below—more Leviathan appeared amid a torrent of bubbles.

Then the sight was gone. In another ten seconds, the eerie pool of light was a spotlight on the black ocean floor, like a city seen from the air. The mass-lowering field on the suit was operating below peak efficiency, and Shepard fought with trembling hands to reprogram it using the battery from his omni-tool and hardsuit VIs. He winced against the pain at his temple. There was a jolt as the thruster/mass-effect balance optimized, and the ascent became a quiet rush through kilometers of darkness.

He let his head fall back and shivered: his suit had all but lost power and was warning him of massive neurological and cardiovascular trauma.

The ride to the surface would be long, assuming the suit could make the ascent at all with the remaining power.

Shepard squinted, fought his closing eyelids to activate a new file on his omni-tool.

“New audio log,” he croaked, clearing his throat. “Priority one… deliver upon death… care of Major Kaidan Alenko, Alliance Navy, or closest ranking officer in the event…” he choked, “…that message cannot be delivered to Major Alenko.”

The omni-tool chirruped: a weak sound. The interface surrounding his arm was pale—a barely-there wisp of a hologram with the limited battery power available.

“Kaidan,” Shepard began, “Mission… first things first. The mission… Made contact with Leviathan. It’s a whole race. They’ve been here for millions of years. They created the Reapers.”

The suit shuddered through turbulence, and the shiver that wracked through Shepard’s body forced a whimper from his throat.

“Created them… they had the whole galaxy enslaved, Kaidan. Oldest race in the universe and they enslaved the rest of the galaxy to maintain their empire…” Shepard huffed, “Imagined what you would say to that. All I could think about while they were talking was what you’d say. I can picture you thinking about that, mulling it over and angry, the way your eyebrows would… would…”

He shook his head, his breath came out as a thick curl of white steam.

“Umm, the other races were…” his head tipped forward as he struggled with consciousness, jolting back upright, “The other races. That they enslaved. Started developing artificial intelligences that destroyed them. Reapers… the Reapers are… solution.”

Shepard coughed as the blood dripped down the back of his throat.

“Leviathan designed the Reapers to fix the problem…” His lip curled into a cold smirk and he shuddered, “’Tribute does not flow from a dead race’ is what they said.”

Shepard looked down at his hands, the joints moved stiffly as he clenched and unclenched his fists.

“Designed to solve the problem. They collect data by harvesting,” he shook his head again, “ _killing_ everything in the galaxy before they can develop synthetics. They preserve life… preserve… ummm.” Shepard swallowed, “In the abstract. …does that… remind you of Bahak, Kaidan?”

He shook his head violently and struggled with his suit controls to administer a stim pack into his bloodstream, but the suit chirped once: the stims were empty.

“Back to… umm… Leviathan… they’ll help. They’re going to help us fight the Reapers… I had to… threaten them.” Shepard swallowed, “Diplomacy at gunpoint. Putting the galaxy together with a gun in my hands… what kind of… ugh. Help is coming, Kaidan. Told them the Reapers knew where they were and they had to fight. But… Tell Earth… Tell Anderson… help is coming.”

He was quiet, then. His reflection in the strained and frosted cockpit was slumped over in the faint light of the displays. Shepard was just barely breathing, the shivering had become extreme and his teeth chattered.

“New time code,” Shepard’s voice was hoarse when he finally spoke again. The cockpit was eerily quiet after the omni-tool chirped to indicate the bookmark had been dropped in the message. “Code for Major Alenko only…”

He touched his face, the slick of dark blood that trailed from his nose shone on his fingertips in the dim light.

“Kaidan. Do you remember… when I told you about going to the Mediterranean? When I was a boy?” he croaked. “I wanted to dive to the bottom. It always felt safe. Cool, down there. I think I was lonely and I didn’t know that’s what it was. It felt right, down there. Diving deep.”

The darkness was a mockery outside the cockpit. Shepard’s eyelids were heavy, bloodshot eyes unfocused. Another tendril of dark blood dribbled down his face, the wet dripping of it on his chest-plate like the ticking of a clock.

“This isn’t… the way I imagined it going.” The haptics inside the suit ran out of energy. There was only the darkness. “But there’s a lot of things… I didn’t imagine this way. My life…” he laughed, deeply pulling at the thin air, smeared his hand across his face to scour the drying blood into the stubble on his cheek. “Talking to myself… dying… that’s all new, Kaidan.”

Saying Kaidan’s name seemed to have an effect on Shepard, his eyes softening in the darkness. The interface on his omni-tool had dimmed completely. It may or may not have even still been recording.

“I’ve never worried about dying. Survival was an instinct. I just did it. I knew the mission came first and I accepted that. I would survive, but if I needed to give my life, it wouldn’t take a second thought. I tried. A lot. To give my life for the mission. But I always survived, somehow. Never felt guilty about it. Why would I? I didn’t need to think about it.” He swallowed, rubbing the dark blood between his fingers, feeling the viscosity: hard-coding. His voice was barely a whisper: “I think about dying a lot, now.”

The suit trembled and a spasm shot through Ben’s body. The submersible had been designed to dive all the way to the bottom, but so much time had passed and the weight of the water had been too much.

“I made it to the bottom, Kaidan. Did… what I was made for. What I thought I wanted. I feel foolish. There was something down here, Kaidan.” Ben sighed and closed his eyes, slowly raising a hand to his head to massage his temples the way he had often massaged Kaidan’s during a migraine. This time, the pain was Shepard’s. “The oldest civilization in the galaxy. No better than the Reapers. No escape, maybe. Dark space to the bottom of the sea—no difference.”

He chuckled mirthlessly, rubbing his forehead the harder to exorcise the pain.

“I know you’d have something to say to that… I wish you were here… I wish I was with you…”

Shepard rubbed his temples.

“You’re the difference.”

He sighed.

“Sorry, Kaidan. If this is the last you hear from me… but I guess you’ve got my KIA letter. I wish… I’d done a better job on that.” He shook his head, but the action sent him pitching forward in pain. By the time he sat back, raising his arm was nearly impossible. “I wish I could see all this through your eyes.”

The silence stretched on, the release of pressure causing the suit to groan: it was the only indication that the suit was rising at all.

“But I’m not alone…” It was a whisper. “I didn’t expect that. I didn’t know how to be lonely as a boy. I didn’t know how to want… something. Someone. Like you. That’s what I should have told you on my KIA letter… I can never… when we’re together… I should…” It was harder to breathe, and Shepard’s chest heaved against his bloodied chest plate. “But the mission. Always. And I know: duty. But I wish… and I want… I’m not sure if I will, but I want to live… I want to go with you…

He swallowed.

“I’ll finish the mission. I will. But I want to be with you.”

High above, the suit was clearing the abyssal zone, and there was a dull blue. Shepard’s heart beat faster as the suit shuddered again, power reserves almost exhausted

“We need to beat the Reapers,” Ben slurred, eyelids falling closed again. “It’s all I am. It’s all I have to give. I would fight every evil in the universe, Kaidan, if it made the galaxy worthy of the way you look at it when you look up at the stars. Do you believe that?”

++

Liara tossed Kaidan another heat sink and dove behind cover—two more Brutes had just torn through Cortez’s killzone unfazed, only slowing when Kaidan and Liara had hobbled them with twin warp fields.

They turned their heads when a metallic clanging shook the rig: the submersible suit had rocketed out of the water and teetered at the edge of the hull. Liara gave Kaidan a worried look, but Kaidan couldn’t peel his gaze away as the cockpit opened to reveal Shepard: bloody and barely conscious.

Cortez swore under his breath and took off in a dead sprint through the field of corpses and advancing Reaper forces towards the shuttle.

Shepard fell out of the suit into a heap, landing on one shaking knee before collapsing onto the wet metal.

“Shepard!” Kaidan bellowed as the Brutes turned, almost as if they recognized the Hero of the Citadel.

Ben started at the sound of his voice, pushed himself onto quivering feet. The rain beat against the hull of the downed starship, whipping about and swallowing Kaidan’s calls as he ordered Liara to cover Cortez. In the light of a single bolt of lightning, the power-drained submersible suit tipped backwards and into the sea—and Shepard fought to open his eyes.

In two steps he had fallen to his face again, oblivious to the Brutes standing over him like dogs—he fixed his eyes forward where Kaidan was panting and staring on with a look of horror on his face.

One Brute raised its hand.

Shepard and the beast shuddered at the same moment, and the artifacts Steve sprinted past began to glow.

And it backhanded the other Brute.

Kaidan bolted forward immediately. Screaming against the wind, he dashed straight at the fighting Brutes, to where Shepard lay beneath them. His biotics flickered as he tried to lift him off the ground, but they didn’t activate, and he hoisted Shepard like dead weight. Shepard seemed to rally at Kaidan’s touch, and they limped away from the Brutes still vying for dominance.

“Shepard’s back,” Kaidan barked, tightening his grip around Shepard’s waist as he pulled him along faster than Ben’s legs were able to move. “Cortez, status!”

He didn’t even look up at the sound of the shuttle over his head.

“ _We’re good to go! Don’t know what the commander did, but the pulse is offline!”_

The Leviathan-controlled Brute slammed its enemy to the ground and Kaidan all but picked Shepard up to wheel him around the obstruction—all his focus on reaching the shuttle.

As the Brute began rampaging through the rest of the forces, Kaidan threw Shepard onto the floor of the Kodiak and immediately activated his omni-tool.

The shuttle was in the air before the hatch was closed.

“Dammit!” Cortez called through grit teeth, “We’ve got a Reaper inbound!”

The massive starship dropped like a meteor through the air, tentacles stretching wide as the shuttle hurtled up at it. 

“Liara, stim packs, medkit. Now,” Kaidan pointed, scanning Shepard’s vitals.

She stumbled against the bulkhead when Steve bucked hard to port to attempt to escape the Reaper—Kaidan bumbled trying to catch the stim pack she tossed him when the Reaper adjusted its heading and bore down on them again.

“Shit!”

“Steve, what is it?” Liara stumbled into the cockpit—the Reaper’s main gun was glowing red.

“Hold on!”

Shepard screamed—at the same moment, a pulse seemed to travel through the Reaper.

Cortez sent the shuttle into a roll to dodge the Reaper—Kaidan covered Shepard’s body with his own, pinning him to the floor—and the Reaper fell to the sea, dead.

Kaidan had opened and administered the stim pack a moment later.

“Shepard, can you hear me?” He watched the read out on his omni-tool with a trembling jaw, “He’s freezing!”

The stim pack hit Shepard’s system suddenly and he lurched off the floor in a coughing fit.

“Are you alright?” Kaidan asked softly as Shepard struggled into a crash seat. The effects of the stim-pack caused his body to tremble: lividity returning in an instant as his arteries dilated, a full cocktail of neurotransmitters jolting him to a heightened alertness.

“Yeah…” Ben looked up at Kaidan, then looked away sheepish and continued to cough. “Yeah, I’m fine. Hell of a headache.” Racing heart and dilated pupils: he was the convivial, invincible Commander once again.

Kaidan stood, armor slick with rain, hair weighted down and wet. His voice had a quiet intensity that made Shepard look up again.

“Don’t ever do that again.”

He sat by as Shepard conversed with Ann Bryson on the comms—a quiver running down Ben’s spine as the only indication he had been lying delirious on the floor a moment ago. He was standing tall now, a practiced smirk playing at the corner of his lips as he explained the discovery to Dr. Bryson.

“Shepard,” Kaidan said, pulling Shepard back into his seat when he had finished with the comms. Ben almost fell back onto his lap. “…how are you feeling?”

“Good,” Ben smiled, he still couldn’t quite look at Kaidan. “Was out of oxygen down there. The stim pack… it’s all I needed. I’m just fine.” The smile on his face was tarnished with a swallowed apprehension.

“Okay,” Kaidan raised an eyebrow, “I’m uh… going to get you another stim pack, your system can take it. At least until we get to medbay… assuming you’ll actually go this time.” He stood up and went to clap Cortez on the shoulder before digging in the medkit for another stim.

Shepard activated his omni-tool.  There was a corrupted audio file that was the last accessed file—not enough power to complete the recording.

Ben’s sigh was stronger than the stims, and he sank in his seat defeated. But when Kaidan turned back around, he sat-up quickly and fixed a grin to his face, body trembling.

He couldn’t make eye-contact when Kaidan administered the stim, but the deep conviction with which he said ‘Thank you’ made Kaidan’s eyebrows raise, and he held Shepard’s hand as they rendezvoused with the Normandy.

++

“Shepard, what the—“

Hours later, Shepard sat on the floor of his cabin, huddled into himself against the wall beneath the aquarium. Kaidan rushed through the door and squatted next to him, reaching for his pulse as his omni-tool lit up. Shepard had removed his shoes and shirt, and his skin was pale and icy cold.

“Can you hear me, Ben?”

“uh… Huh…” Ben’s voice sounded distant and drowsy, and Kaidan scowled at the way Shepard smiled up at him lazily.

“GodDAMMIT Shepard, _this_ is why you don’t skip the post-mission medical check-up! I thought I saw you shivering walking around the ship, dammit!” Kaidan rushed into the bathroom and turned the shower on, “EDI, raise the temperature of this cabin. Gimme 28 degrees.”

“Done, Major,” EDI chirped over the comms.

“Come on Shepard, time to get up…” Kaidan hoisted the man to his feet, but Shepard was wobbly. Propping him against the wall, Kaidan quickly shucked off the rest of his clothes and helped Shepard onto his office chair before pushing the whole thing into the shower. Shepard shuddered out in little gasps as if the water were boiling hot. Kaidan, uniform soaking, ducked out of the bathroom and continued barking orders into the comms. When he appeared a few minutes later, he was naked as Shepard, holding a thermos of steaming liquid.

“Wha—that?” Shepard’s eyes were opening and closing in heavy intervals. Kaidan kneeled down in front of Shepard, his back to the spray, rivulets of water streaming down his soaking bangs.

“Here, it’s hot tea.” He held it to Shepard’s lips, but when Shepard lifted his arms to take hold of the thermos, the movement made him tip in the chair, and the boiling water on the newly exposed skin made him wince. Kaidan slowly poured some of the tea into his mouth, “Well, actually it’s more butter and sweetener than tea but you can’t just—aww what the hell am I babbling… _dammit,_ Shepard!”

Shepard coughed and swallowed the tea slowly, wincing back from the burning spray. The water, however, was actually just cooler than room temperature, and Kaidan shivered under the shower head. “Ready to turn up the heat a little bit?”

“Uh huh.” Shepard did not sound confident, so Kaidan cranked the knob a quarter turn, and helped Ben’s fingers around the thermos.

“I want you to drink all of that before you leave this shower.” Kaidan stood up and crossed his arms. Even through his delirium, Shepard’s eyes scanned up Kaidan’s naked body in the shower: fussing over him and muttering to himself under his breath, eyebrows knit together. “Mmmm, no probably wouldn’t be able to generate a field… _dammit dammit._ I’ll have to…”

“’s this really… firs’ time we shower… together?” Shepard tried to smile, clearly a monumental effort. Kaidan frowned and forced him to guzzle down some more tea.

“Both just too used to utilitarian showers I guess.” But Kaidan’s face betrayed that he didn’t quite have his heart in the banter. Kaidan cocked his neck to one side and made a very particular gesture with his hand, fingers splayed. A biotic field snapped around Shepard, warming his skin.

“Wha’s this?”

“Remember how I did all that time training biotics in Antarctica? I’m going to warm you up, now sit still.” Shepard couldn’t do much else. “Drink your tea.”

“How can… drink tea if… sit still?””

“Shut up. Drink your tea.” Kaidan snapped, then attempted to temper it with a smile. But his eyes gave away that the smile was a lie.

Shepard’s grip slipped around the thermos several times, but Kaidan caught it with his biotics on reflex. After a few minutes, Shepard began shivering uncontrollably. Kaidan’s biotics flashed off and he practically poured the tea down Shepard’s throat.

“Alright, time to stand up.” Kaidan helped him out of the chair, shoving it against the wall as he got behind Shepard and began vigorously rubbing his torso and gently swaying to force Shepard to move his legs. It was an odd sight, and Shepard gave a token guffaw before the shivers wracking his body turned it into an anguished groan. Shepard’s teeth started chattering, and Kaidan turned the temperature up on the shower, plumes of steam now curling up the wall.

“You… feel… warm… Kaidan.” Ben laid his head back on Kaidan’s shoulder between intermittent spasms.

“That’s what I’m here for.” Kaidan’s tone was still all business. He brushed more softly down Shepard’s sides and he nudged Shepard’s hand holding the thermos, “Chug that.”

“Sorry… don’t know… what happened… sorry…” Shepard raised the thermos to his mouth.

“Shh. Okay?” Kaidan lightly slapped him on the belly, then resumed rubbing him down.

“Not the way… I wanted to spend… our evening…” His tongue licked at the spicy stain the tea had left on his lips and he let more of his weight fall back into Kaidan’s arms.

“It’s okay, Shepard.” Kaidan’s lips were at his ear, tenderly kissing Ben’s neck.

His shivering finally abated, and after another few minutes under the hot water wrapped in Kaidan’s arms, they finally turned off the shower, and Kaidan dried them both off. They stepped out of the bathroom, billows of steam creeping after them into Shepard’s cabin. Kaidan helped Ben into a pair of briefs and his N7 Hoodie—still tossed over the back of his chair from the other night. He himself slipped into just a pair of underwear from Shepard’s drawer.

Kaidan opened his comms: “Dr. Chakwas, I don’t think we’ll be needing any intravenous warming, Shepard’s on the upswing.” Chakwas bade him a good night, and Kaidan turned his attention to the man he was holding to himself, “How’re you feeling, Shepard?”

“I’m okay I think… fine.” Ben had both his arms thrown around the other man, head resting on his shoulder, simply clinging.

“Liar,” Kaidan scoffed. “You can barely keep your eyes open!”

“I’ll be fine.” Ben held onto Kaidan tighter, “…You don’t have to stay if you don’t want.”

“You still need me, Shepard, you stubborn ass. And I wanna be here.” He brushed his fingers over Shepard’s ear and looked at him, some affection melting the stony resolve on his face. The room was very obviously warm—Kaidan’s face was flecked with perspiration—still Shepard shivered from time to time.

Kaidan peeled Ben off and propped himself up in bed, then helped Shepard onto the mattress to sit between his legs, the back of his head resting against Kaidan’s collar bone.

“You’re warm. I love how warm you are. Have I ever told you that?” Shepard let his head loll to one side as Kaidan squeezed Shepard between his thighs, drawing the blanket up around them as Shepard began to shiver again.

“You’ve told me I’m hot,” Kaidan rolled his eyes. “Does that count?”

“Ha. Finally got you to lighten your mood.”

“Asshole.” Kaidan chuckled, “Don’t make me lay into you for being such a damn idiot again.”

The chuckle died in a long Hsigh. Shepard took a deep, shuddering breath.

“I had to do it, Kaidan. There was no way we were getting off that rig without—“

“Pulling crazy stunts when lives are on the line is one thing, Shepard. That’s not what I mean and you damn well know it.” Kaidan interrupted, tightening his arms around Ben’s torso. “Still, you’re a damn idiot for not just getting your check-up after the mission.”

“I don’t know. I felt fine.”

“That’s because of the stims, Ben! And your core temperature had dropped so far you were delirious!” Kaidan laughed, but it was obviously forced. “Not enough to finish the mission and get your check-up, _you’ve_ got to talk to give your report and talk to every member of the crew… Just to be thorough.” When Shepard let his head sink to his chest, his voice came out a mumble:

“Is that another part of what you love about me?” Ben’s voice cracked into a shivering yawn. Kaidan stroked one hand down his chest beneath the blanket. Kissing Shepard’s ear and finding it cold, he breathed on both ears and raised Shepard’s hood.

“Long as you’re still breathing at the end of it. Even if it means I have to fight to keep you that way.”

“Good…” Shepard sighed, “I’m so tired.”

“You’re going to sleep real soon, but first you need to eat.” Kaidan’s biotics lit up, and though Shepard’s skin crackled, his did not respond sympathetically. A steaming silver package of protein supp floated around the corner wrapped in a blue aura and delivered itself to Kaidan’s hand.

“I’m not hungry at all,” Shepard groaned.

“Don’t be an idiot. You’ve got to eat something, and the fat from that tea is gonna be wearing off soon.” Kaidan stabbed the spoon around to break up the clumps in the protein mush. Shepard shuffled to take hold of the insulated packet, “No, keep your arms under the blanket. I got this.”

“Kaidan, you’re not going to spoon feed me,” he said dryly.

“I sure as hell am, Shepard, and nothing you say is going to stop that so just lay there, goddammit!” This time the sternness in Kaidan’s tone was for show. Shepard complied, rolling his eyes, but as Kaidan spooned the first bit into his mouth he accepted it gratefully.

“Hm. Mmm. Is that… honey?”

“Yeah. I added a bunch, borrowed it from Traynor’s private stash. Nothing makes protein supp go down like honey.”

“It’s actually good.” He accepted another spoonful, eyes closed as he swallowed. Kaidan’s stomach grumbled. “Have you eaten yet?”

“Nah. Was too busy looking for you!”

“You were standing in the lounge for at least an hour before I even came up here!” Shepard struggled to sit up, but Kaidan managed to hold him close before a wrestling match could ensue.

“I try to do my reports before I eat,” he guffawed when Shepard weakly elbowed his ribs, “and then Chakwas asked if I’d seen you, so I went looking.”

“I told you I was in my cabin when you called me.” He finally sagged back into Kaidan’s chest, exhausted from the effort.

“Yeah, and you sounded like death. Said you were ‘fine’. Good thing I ignored that, huh?”

Shepard quietly accepted a few more spoonfuls. “Have some.”

“No, this is for you. I can eat later.”

“ _Have_ some. It’s good. Come on.” Shepard insisted, turning his head away from the next spoonful. Kaidan chuckled.

“Alright, you can be so stubborn sometimes.” He ate a spoonful, and then got one for Ben. “Oh yeah, that is good.”

“’Shepard and Alenko’s Gourmet Protein Supplement Packets;’ we could open a store in the wards.”

“No one but us _chooses_ protein supp, Shepard.” He ate another bite.

“Maybe so.” Kaidan fed him another helping,

Kaidan was scraping around the bottom of the packet now.

“…Shepard, why didn’t you tell me something was wrong? Why did you wave me off when I called you before?”

“I don’t know.” Ben sighed, “I was alright on the shuttle. My head is killing me still, but I didn’t start getting cold till I got out of my armor… and…” He chewed on his protein sup, swallowing slowly.

“Yeah?”

“I saw things when I was down with Leviathan. People I knew, people who weren’t acting like themselves, talking in this voice… Leviathan was using images of people I knew to talk to me.” He shivered and Kaidan had to hold him tight. “Every time I think about that meeting I feel cold. I keep thinking I hear voices…”

“Still?” Kaidan’s eyes narrowed, “We’re light years away from Despoina.”

“Still. Maybe, every now and then. Walking around the ship… it was hard to know what was real and what wasn’t.” His voice sank to a whisper, “It felt like I was indoctrinated. I felt like I couldn’t trust the people I was seeing were the people I really knew.”

Kaidan fed him another morsel of protein supp.

“…How about me? How do you feel about me right now?”

“You feel as real as anything.” Shepard nuzzled his face into Kaidan’s chest before Kaidan insisted he take another bite.

“Good. I’m here, Ben. I’m here for you.” Kaidan softly ran his hand down Shepard’s chest over the blanket. Shepard shuddered.

“How long was I down there?”

“A while. If you hadn’t been unconscious, you would’ve used up the oxygen in the mech. Between that and the mental trauma…” Kaidan swallowed hard, but Shepard rubbed his leg weakly beneath the blanket.

“What was happening on the surface?”

“Well I want to say that I was too busy to be worrying my head off about you, but that’s not exactly true. We got swamped by Reaper forces. Good thing Cortez is a hell of a shot. It got practically clinical at one point with these husks… Liara with a singularity, I’d detonate it with a Reave field, Cortez would mop up the rest. Lather, rinse, repeat.” He scraped the rest of the protein sup out of the pouch and deposited the bag onto the dresser, wrapping both arms around Shepard again. “So I sent Cortez back into the shuttle to get it fixed, then more Brutes started appearing. Just a million Brutes. So I had to call him back out.”

“You held out well.” Shepard sighed, his body sinking into Kaidan like dead weight.

“Didn’t get dangerous till we needed to collect heat sinks from dead Cannibals. Had to do some emergency first-aid when Liara got decked by a Brute: she’s gonna have a hell of a headache in the morning.”

“That makes two of us.”

“That makes three of us,” he laughed. “You were way overdue with the amount of oxygen in that thing. I finally had to ask Cortez about it… I don’t think he would’ve told me otherwise. What happened down there? I mean, if you feel like talking about it.”

Shepard immediately began shivering and Kaidan stiffened behind him, holding him close.

“It was… confusing. He was in my head…” His eyebrows knit together, “’They?’ Hard to know if I was talking to one entity or more. I feel like he’s still there, but… I could feel… cold. Loneliness. It was… ancient rage. They were going to keep me, study me. Just let the galaxy burn.”

“How did you change their minds?” Kaidan’s voice was small, but resolute.

“I don’t know.” Shepard admitted, “I yelled at them. Told them that the Reapers will never stop. As if they didn’t already know. I don’t know why they changed their minds. I couldn’t let them keep me there…”

“’Course.”

“…they said I had singular confidence. That our victories were more than a product of chance. I wonder if that was it. They felt like someone had shown them up…”

“Heh. Even making the ancient crustacean space overlords nervous, huh Shepard?”

Ben smiled weakly, shivering again and closing his eyes against a sudden pain.

“I woke up… pounding headache, could barely breathe, freezing cold. Trip to the surface felt like it took forever.” He tried to look back at Kaidan over his shoulder, “I… tried recording…” he gave up and shook his head. “Never mind. But…. then… the Brutes. I wish I could stop thinking about it.” It was as if Shepard had been holding his body tense and suddenly released, “I’m so tired, Kaidan.”

“Go to sleep.”

“Every time I close my eyes… those voices. What if that’s what it’s like to be indoctrinated? What if I’m…?” He swallowed.

“Those creatures hate the Reapers more than we do. You’re not indoctrinated,” Kaidan insisted, punctuating the point by kissing the top of Shepard’s hood. “You just need to sleep this off.”

“…talking to me… inside my head… like the Prothean beacon… but so much… angrier…” Ben was shivering again.

“Shhh. Sleep. I’m here, okay?” Shepard slowly faded off to sleep, still fitfully murmuring beneath his hood. His breath became more regular—

—then he started awake, almost leaping out of Kaidan’s arms if the he hadn’t held Ben so fast.

“Where—”

“—you’re with me, Ben. It’s Kaidan. You’re safe,” Kaidan whispered into Shepard’s ear through his hood.

Shepard groaned, “I feel awful, Kaidan.”

“I know, Ben. You’re gonna be okay though.” Kaidan chewed on the inside of his lip, brow furrowed, “Ann Bryson said she had aftershocks of her contact with Leviathan for… what?”

“A… few days.”

Kaidan gulped, “Doesn’t matter. You’ll be back on your feet soon.”

“She was in contact with Leviathan for a few seconds, I had them in my mind for…”

“Shhh. It’s okay, Ben. Back when you connected to the Prothean beacon, Liara said your mind should’ve snapped under the pressure, but it didn’t. You’re strong, you’re gonna shake this.”

“I was strong then…” he breathed.

“…what?”

“Nothing. Nothing. Thanks Kaidan. Just so tired.”

“Your body’s worn out from the hypothermia, and probably your mind being so vulnerable didn’t help. You just need to rest.”

“Stay here, okay?” Ben murmured sleepily turning into Kaidan’s chest.

“Of course. I’m gonna be right here all night. You just gotta trust me Shepard, alright? Try to sleep. Do it for me, Okay?”

“I need to write the report—“

“Are you kidding me, Benjamin?” Kaidan said, the Arabic pronunciation on his tongue thick with exasperation. “I’ll write the report. Tomorrow.”

“—tell the council: we finally had some good luck. This was a victory.”

++

Victory indeed.

Shepard thrashed and panicked all night.

After an hour of fitful babbling, he finally drifted into what seemed a stable sleep. Kaidan took the opportunity to slide out from under him, pulling the blanket up under his chin and turning the heat in the cabin down to a more manageable level. He sat next to the bed, clad only in his underwear still, letting the sweat evaporate off his body.

Kaidan’s data-pad sat next to the chess-board on Shepard’s table, still bookmarked where he last left off reading _Fifth Business_. He had almost completed the book, and he sat down to resume reading where he left off. Soon enough he had finished it, though he would look up whenever Shepard might stir. He had to pace the bedroom and wash his face at a particular line:

> _“But every man has a devil, and a man of unusual quality… has an unusual devil. You must get to know your personal devil. You must even get to know his father, the Old Devil.”_

But with the book finished, he tried again to go to bed. Moments later he had stood again and sat to write his Spectre report:

 

> _Upon returning to the ship, Shepard began exhibiting signs of hypothermia. While I have yet to consult medical personnel regarding his condition, it is my belief that Shepard’s weakened state of mind from the Leviathan communication made him more vulnerable to the cold. From his recounting, it seems the Leviathan did not merely communicate with Shepard, as with other Leviathan Indoctrinated—_

Kaidan deleted the word ‘indoctrinated’

 

> — _as with others the Leviathan contacted. The mind scan and subsequent probing have affected Shepard’s perception. It is reasonable to believe that, like Dr. Bryson, the effects of this contact will fade over time._
> 
> _I have never seen Shepard like this. It is obvious that this pact between the Alliance and the Leviathan is beneficial, perhaps even crucial to our understanding of the Reapers and our chances of defeating them in the war. However, the personal cost is severe. For a soldier, prepared to give his life for the cause of freedom, little else is more horrifying than to be psychologically scarred by what he has had to do._
> 
> _I try to keep myself positive, I try not to think about how little of the galaxy will be left to save if we defeat the Reapers. But the truth is, this thought has struck me on a deeply personal level. I believe Shepard will recover, but seeing him so broken after this encounter makes me wonder: what will be left of Shepard at the end of this war? I know Shepard will fight with everything he has in him, that he’ll give anything. But I would do anything to protect him from a future as a broken man. And I fear its inevitable—maybe for all of use—but Shepard most of all. He tortures himself because he doesn’t know any better. There’s so much weight on his shoulders. We’ve had a major victory, and now we know the cost_.

His Spectre report had become a diary entry.

Kaidan frowned down at the data-pad as he silently deleted it.

++

It was a rough night. Whenever Kaidan dozed off, wrapping his arms around Shepard, what felt like minutes later, Shepard would jerk in his arms, screaming awake. Kaidan would soothe him, assure him he was safe, and lay him down again. He’d stay awake a little longer each time, trying to make his own even breathing catch with Shepard. Then, as he closed his eyes and faded into sleep, Shepard would elbow him in the face and try to scramble shouting out of bed.

The fourth time, Kaidan was lying on top of Shepard, wrestling him into the mattress, fighting against Shepard’s delirious strength, yelling over Shepard’s yelling to wake the man up. This time they decided not to try to go back to sleep, but instead Kaidan took his hand and led Shepard on a walk around the cabin in the dark.

“Sometime, Ben, I’m going to take you to the woods out behind my parent’s acreage and we’re gonna walk just like this. Fresh air, first couple days of fall when the leaves are changing.” They turned at the hatch and paced back toward the center of the cabin. “Feel like we’re really going somewhere.”

“Sounds nice.” Shepard tried to smile, but he still looked exhausted, feet plodding along as Kaidan slowed his steps to match.

“Yeah. No more war. No more nightmares. Just you and me.”

“Maybe ‘no nightmares’ is a little too optimistic to hope for.” Shepard’s voice was hollow.

“Maybe not. I wanna be the only thing waking you up in the middle of the night.” Kaidan tried sounding seductive, but the little smile he saw on Shepard’s lips turned his ‘sexy smirk’ into a full laughing grin, which itself dissolved quickly into a yawn.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Kaidan. It’s frustrating. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m sorry to make you worry about me like this.” He laid his head on Kaidan’s shoulder.

“Of course I’m going to worry about you. Pulling crazy stunts like that, saving the galaxy. Comes with caring about you so damn much.” As Kaidan spoke, Shepard slipped around behind him and pulled Kaidan’s back into his chest, holding him like a giant teddy bear.

“It helps to know I’m not alone tonight. Thanks for being here.”

“Nowhere else I’d rather be. How ‘bout we go back to bed and spoon for a while?”

++

Shepard woke up on his side in the morning, Kaidan sitting cross-legged with his knees poking into his back, body draped over Shepard’s torso, sound asleep.

“Kaidan?”

“I’m here Shepard, what is it?” Kaidan started awake, immediately soothing his hand over Shepard’s body as he wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth.

“I’m alright Kaidan. You’re—you’re covered in bruises.” Shepard scrambled to his knees on the mattress, wincing and clutching his head. He took Kaidan’s face between his palms and inspected the black eye that had formed, ran his finger over Kaidan’s black and blue marked chest.

“Yeah, it’s no big deal.”

“I did that didn’t I? Shit!”

“Shepard, don’t _worry_ about it. Okay?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Shepard!” Kaidan lifted Shepard’s chin, “Stop, okay? I’m fine.” Shepard kissed him. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah, I am. No voices this morning. Still got a hell of a headache.”

“Now you know how I feel. You’re probably dehydrated. I’ll get you some water.” Kaidan began shuffling towards the edge of the bed when Shepard seized his wrist and spun him back.

“Thank you for staying with me last night.” His hands sank down Kaidan’s back.

“Don’t mention it,” Kaidan smirked.

“How can I make it up to you?” Shepard had grabbed his ass.

“You can promise me you’ll go see Chakwas—“

“I had something different in mind…” his hands slipped inside Kaidan’s briefs.

“—and help me make it to my duty shift in the next 5 minutes.”

Shepard’s shoulders fell, “…Really?”

“Uh huh.”

“I thought we were on mandatory shore leave?”

“We should get to the Citadel later this afternoon, _then_ we’ll be on shore leave.” He leaned in and kissed Shepard’s brow, “I’m surprised you’re looking forward to it. I didn’t think you were capable of taking time off.” He wriggled out of Shepard’s grip.

“Well the Reapers sure as hell aren’t taking any time, but if I’m going to be stewing about why we can’t assemble the fleet to go after the Illusive Man, I’d rather be stewing someplace with good food—“ Kaidan shucked down his briefs and grabbed a fresh pair from Shepard’s drawers “—and attractive company.”

“Big plans?” Kaidan smirked over his shoulder as Shepard pulled back the hood of his sweatshirt, transfixed.

“One very big plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here ends what is, sort of, the spiritual First Part of The Difference between the Sea and the Sky. The rest of the story will be posted to this same work, but there's a bit of a tone shift moving forward. The next Part will take place during the Citadel DLC, so a bit of a tone shift is warranted.
> 
> Next Chapter:  
> Citadel DLC - 'Nice Outfit'
> 
> Get back to apartment after being ambushed in restaurant.


	24. The Difference between Real People and Fictional People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan's on shore leave. There are things Kaidan would rather be doing on shore leave. Certain intimate activities. Meanwhile, he's testing rifle mods and getting a lesson in what it means to be a Spectre...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here begins the sorta-Part 2 of The Difference between the Sea and the Sky. The next several chapters will take place during the Citadel DLC, and hence require an understanding of that, since each chapter will take place between events shown in that. 
> 
> Since the Citadel DLC's tone was 'have fun' and 'roast Mass Effect' a bit, I've tried to carry that over to this part of the story.

It was far too warm to be wearing armor.

Kaidan stood on the firing range inside the Spectre Office near the Earth embassy. The holo-projected target 30 meters ahead had a steady line of holes from navel to brow. He popped his thermal clip and carried the rifle back to the workbench.

“Scope is worthless…” he grumbled to himself, popping it off to reattach the scope that he’d had since his promotion to Commander. He stopped and sighed just as he was about to fit it into place, “Experiment, Alenko,” he muttered under his breath, “try new things… can’t stagnate.”

He carefully affixed a thermal imaging scope to his rifle, screwing an armor piercing mod to the barrel.

“Plenty of time to see Shepard later…” he murmured. The sweat he wiped from his brow dripped off the smooth surfaces of his gauntlets. Perhaps because turians formed the majority of the Council Spectre ranks, the room was kept Palaven-warm. “A whole week… plenty of time for all sorts of… activities…”

Behind him, the door quietly slid open and an unusually tall salarian in light armor strode into the room. His skin was dark, giraffe-like patterning surrounding eyes curiously beady by salarian standards. He stepped deliberately, as if making a show of the noise his boots were making. His eyes were fixed on Kaidan at once and he beamed.

“Ah, Spectre Alenko! My apologies for interrupting.”

“No interruption, plenty of room for two, huh?” Kaidan moved over on the bench, but the other Spectre stood with his hands behind his back, watching the Kaidan adjust his mods. “…Sorry, I’m afraid I can’t remember your name if we’ve met…”

“We corresponded once briefly some weeks back… concerning the Citadel coup,” he said breezily, “Col Vedirus. We have not met. Not so many human Spectres for me to keep track of, hmmm?” He stepped forward and offered his hand—so close Kaidan had to step back to grasp it firmly.

“Kaidan,” he shook Col’s hand, trying to return the salarian’s wide, ebullient smile. The taller Spectre glanced down at the sheen of sweat left on his fingers from Kaidan’s gauntlets. “Yeah, I guess salarians have a real jump on us in the Spectre club.”

Col nodded politely and did not let go of Kaidan’s hand for a long moment, inspecting Kaidan’s gaze with dark eyes.

“What brings you to the firing range today?” the Spectre said at last, stepping back and allowing Kaidan to turn back to the workbench. “Surely not boredom! From the reports I’ve seen, you and Spectre Shepard have been getting plenty of action together, lately.”

Kaidan’s head jerked up.

“Wha—what?”

“The geth, Cerberus, Reaper forces.” Col’s wide eyes held steady.

“Oh. Yeah.” Kaidan’s face flushed, and he shifted awkwardly while Col stared on. “Well, the Normandy’s getting some repairs and I’m on shore leave. I don’t really have many hobbies, so here I am: no more than 3 hours on vacation, and I’m up here testing out a few mods before taking them into the field. Also bought a gift for a friend. Finally had the chance to pick it up and thought I’d test it out a bit before giving it to him.”

“A weapon, then?” Col stepped up behind Kaidan at the bench.

“Yeah,” Kaidan gestured to the shotgun on the table. “M-11 Wraith. Trying to get it outfitted and calibrated properly.”

“A Spectre Requisition weapon!” Col said brightly, leaning down to look at it over Kaidan’s shoulder. “Excellent. May I assume it is for Spectre Shepard, then?”

“Yeah. Good guess, by the way,” Kaidan cleared his throat, carefully stepped out of Col’s looming shadow.

“Reasonable guess. We lead solitary lives as member of Special Tactics.” Col’s tone was too bright for his words. “Typical that our only attachments are to one another. Makes sense that as one of only two human Spectres—and being such long-standing friends with the only other human Spectre—you would requisition something special for him. Someone special to you…” He folded his arms when Kaidan’s brow furrowed. “Quite an attractive idea, regardless. I do wish more of the salarian Spectres were friendlier with one another. Particularly if it meant someone would buy me an outrageously expensive shotgun!”

“Heh, yeah,” Kaidan searched Col’s smile for a moment, then shook his head slightly. “Umm… Cost a pretty penny. The Normandy gets discretionary funding to buy weapons and armor for our mission against the Reapers, but Shepard would never spend the money on himself. I’ve had some money put away forever, so I thought: why the hell not. Might be my last chance to spend some of it.”

“Ah,” Col looked back down at the shotgun, then back to Kaidan, “Forgive my forwardness, but may I give it a go?”

“Oh, sure. Be my guest,” Kaidan rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “I just got it calibrated right, but I’m not very handy with a shotgun.”

Col took the shotgun with one giant hand and strode up to the armored target, moved it back to a considerable range, humming a little tune as he did. Raising the shotgun, he sank two shells into the center of the chest. The third blast turned the target’s head into a smoking hole. It was truly an impressive handling.

“Mm. Subpar user performance,” He frowned, but his tone and his words didn’t match—voice still sunny and assured. “Excellent weapon. Ideally outfitted. Unfortunately: calibrated for human use. I apologize for my poor showing.”

Kaidan blinked at the smoking holes in the target and shifted his weight, surveying Col Vedirus carefully under a furrowed brow.

“…I dunno. I thought that was pretty good.”

“No need to be conciliatory,” Col dismissed, “I am confident in my own abilities and do not need to be validated.”

“I mean… I wasn’t just trying to puff you up.” Kaidan raised his assault rifle, the thermal scope aggravating him for a moment before his eyes adjusted and laid a quick burst of 5 slugs into the skull of the target, another five in the center of the chest. Col bellowed a laugh.

“Very impressive! Impressive indeed, mm. A pleasure to witness competent gun play. I hope it doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable to have me watching you, Major?”

“Um. No.” Kaidan spared a sidelong glance as he replaced his clip. Col was standing _very_ near. “Not really. Let me know if you wanna use any of the targets; I really don’t mean to hog the range.”

“It’s alright, thank you. I didn’t come to shoot.”

“Oh. What, then?” Kaidan squinted through his scope again, then lowered the weapon, scowling.

“Was actually hoping to find someone up here.” Col leaned against the railing and steepled his fingers, “They’ve recently opened the Armax Arsenal Arena on the Silversun Strip. I’ve been hoping to run into a few other Spectres. Perhaps take some matches in the arena. I think it would be great fun, an excellent bonding opportunity—which, as I’ve made clear, is sorely needed—and I believe we could win some money for some of the children’s charities here on the Citadel.”

“…That’s… that’s a pretty good idea, actually.” Kaidan smiled broadly and that seemed to please Col immensely.

“So, will you accompany me then? Matches are most fun when taken in groups of three; but based on your shooting, we should have no trouble taking on any challenge with just we two.” Col’s voice had dropped to a dangerous tone, but by the time Kaidan glanced up, the wide smile had returned to the taller Spectre’s face.

“What, now?”

“Absolutely!” He pushed himself up from the railing, “Already wearing your armor. It was part of my plan: encounter Spectres while relaxing, yet still prepared to fight! So I thought: firing range! Come on! Will be a better way of spending your shore leave than firing at still targets!”

“Seems like a well thought-out plan,” Kaidan squinted slightly and managed a smile. “Though ‘hoping to catch someone’ at the firing range seems like leaving a lot to chance for a Spectre operative.”

Col’s smile eased into a cold smirk.

“What an interesting notion, Major.” Then, quickly as it had gone, the grin returned to Col’s face, “What do you say, to the arena?”

Kaidan huffed a small laugh, “Okay, sure. Sounds like fun.”

“Splendid! I have a car waiting outside the embassy!”

++

Col was a consummate professional at the art of small talk, and the flight to the Silversun Strip was peppered with talk of guns, ammo, mods, and each of their various favorite attractions around the Citadel.

“You mean to tell me, Major Alenko, that you’ve _never_ been to the arcade on the Silversun Strip?”

“You can call me Kaidan—“

“Well then, you _must_ call me Col.”

“—and no, I used the visit sushi place whenever I was on the Citadel, but never explored the rest of what the strip’s got to offer, really.”

“And here I thought you said you’d spent time on the Citadel!”

“Well, yeah. But most of the time was during the reconstruction after Sovereign’s attack.”

“I think you mean the _geth’s_ attack,” Col said with mock-gravitas and rolled his eyes. Kaidan chuckled, shoulder relaxing after how tense he’d been earlier when discussing guns with the salarian.

“You know, I never thought I’d find myself laughing about that.” Kaidan shifted in his seat, watching the Presidium go by out the window. “Made me so mad when the Council white-washed the whole thing.”

“Aha. Now at least I know you are capable of _having_ fun. Next stop: the Strip!” He dramatically waggled one finger as the car rushed down a shaft and emerged in the wards.

“Heh. I’m a quiet, boring kinda guy. Clubs, arcades: I got used to them a long time ago, but since I became a soldier I like some alone time. I mean, to be honest, I like blowing off steam with a little dancing too. But most of the time? Peace and quiet, that sorta thing.”

“But you’ve got a stomach for fighting, yes? Wouldn’t want us to get to the arena and see you have a change of heart!” Col was generous on the accelerator.

“Oh yeah. Nothing gets the blood pumping like a good fight,” Kaidan smirked, raised his eyebrows. “Let’s me get out a little of that pent up emotion, y’know?”

“Absolutely.” Col put true relish into the word.

“Well now you know a little about me, Spectre Col Vedirus. How about you? Former STG, I take it?”

“Indeed.”

“But not a soldier, I’d guess, huh?”

“And what makes you think that?” Col smiled good-naturedly.

“Hard to put my finger on, exactly. Something about your gun-play makes it seem like weapons were a side part of your job, not the whole of it.”

“Hm,” he chuckled, “Well I must admit you have me there. Science division for almost 15 years.”

“Impressive.”

“Meh. Service is service, yes? And now let me make some guesses about you, Major Kaidan Alenko: you have recently begun a relationship with Commander Benjamin Shepard.”

Kaidan tensed and stuttered for a moment before clearing his throat.

“…ummm… well that’s STG espionage for you. But yes…?” Kaidan’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re kidding!” Col clutched his stomach and bent over the steering wheel, croaking out in fits of laughter. “Oh, they’re true! They’d be so happy if they knew!” he honked and slapped the side of his face, oblivious to Kaidan’s stare.

“What?” Kaidan sat up straight in his seat, eyebrows high on his forehead, “You mean you were just guessing?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Col guffawed. “I was building up to a ‘doozy’ of a joke, but the joke was on me all along! Here:” he bumped his omni-tool against Kaidan’s and a large archive of files auto-downloaded. Kaidan began sifting through. “Monitoring the extranet traffic into and out of the Citadel for the Council, I come across these. They’re tremendously popular. Well, not _tremendously_ , but there’s a small and loyal fan base.”

There were a number of file names. Kaidan’s eyes fell to a particular subset of titles immediately, like ‘Spectre Mine’ and ‘Hero Humans Hump’.

“These are… porn…?”

“No, no, no,” Col tutted, “Well, not all. Some. Erotica specifically. Involving you and Commander Shepard.”

“…really!?” Kaidan rubbed his temple with an anguished groan, “Awwww, shit!”

“Most, in fact, are more appropriately termed ‘romances.’ Of course, Shepard’s had his own romance and erotica community for some years now—we all do really, the Spectres—but since you were named second human Spectre, the amount of material involving you and Shepard has surpassed those of any other Spectre/Spectre pairing.” Col was still chuckling every time he caught his breath, “It’s my usual way of meeting new Spectres: I thought you’d find it funny, as the latest Spectre, to find out what creative fans you have. But now that I know that you and Shepard are _indeed_ in a romantic relationship—my day is made.” He watched Kaidan out of the corner of his eye, “And, should be intriguing to watch the reaction.”

“I can’t believe this!” Kaidan continued to scroll through the list, text documents as well as holo-novels, even a few audio-dramas. “Who would do this?”

“As I said, they’re not all sex. Most are rather sweet, actually. Some of them are quite good! Having spoken with you now, I think many have gotten your characterization ‘down pat.’”

Kaidan pressed the button and called up a story named ‘Tell Me You’ll Keep Me Warm’ and scrolled to the middle of the flick. His omni-tool projected the image, digital versions of he and Shepard flickered on the screen—surprisingly life-like—he in a long white terry-cloth robe, Shepard wearing jeans and suspenders over his bare torso.

 

> _“Alenko, I can’t stand the ache in my heart for you anymore. But since our beloved earth is fallen, you have been as cold to me as a Noveria sunset. My heart beats the rhythm of love for **you** alone, my dear sweet one. The Reapers have ravaged the galaxy, but even they cannot steal my affection for you!”_
> 
> _“Shepard, damn you and your soft words! Damn them straight to hell! You know that my only love is justice! But lady justice has never smiled at me as you just have. You have infected me with **love** Shepard, and though I strive to rescue our home world and bring justice upon our mutual Reaper foe, I love you against my will! Take me in your arms and prove to me the virulence of your love with soft words and your soft lips!”_

The digital Shepard took the digital Kaidan into a full dip and they began violently kissing. The voices were strangely over-processed, as if they’d been recorded and run through a filter to make them sound like Shepard and Kaidan.

Kaidan stared wide eyed for some time, his face drained of color.

“Umm. Wow... that’s, uh… that’s really something.” He swallowed and jabbed at the interface to pause the playback as the image faded to a text screen with the advisory: “Out of respect for the individuals who are the subject of this fic, no simulated sex using models based off the Spectres will be featured, in compliance with Spectre Fantasy Forum’s policy…” flashed in orange on the screen.

“Very moving though, yes?” Col nodded solemnly.

“Ummm… no? No.” Kaidan shook his head, reeling. “I don’t know what the hell I just watched. Why am I wearing a robe? Why is Shepard wearing suspenders?”

“Is that… was that ‘Tell Me You’ll Keep Me Warm’? Ah, if I remember right, at that point in the story, you’ve just gotten out of the shower, and Shepard has been chopping wood.”

 “I can’t believe this…”

“The models look good, though, yes? There’s something of a connoisseur community set up around appraising and buffing different 3D renderings of the two of you. Most stories are not written by humans, and they do seem to struggle with human speech patterns.”

Kaidan said nothing, but despite the frown on his face, he scrolled back through the playback and left the image of Shepard in jeans and suspenders open for longer than his disgust would’ve suggested. He shook his head finally, staring at Shepard’s bare chest, dusted with a generous growth of hair.

“Shepard is going to… actually I have no idea what Shepard’s gonna say.” He sighed, “He’s… probably going to love this.”

“Try the ‘Human Spectre Chronicles’. One of my favorites.”

“…there’s 178 chapters!”

“’First Date.’ That one: priceless.”

Kaidan selected the chapter, and his image appeared sitting opposite of Shepard on a gingham blanket in one of the Presidium parks, a fried chicken dinner between them. There was a massive spread of food all over, in fact. Kaidan was wearing a leather jacket, Shepard was dressed in a scandalously revealing fishnet shirt complete with a pink bowtie, and _very_ short running shorts.

Kaidan did not look away as the camera scrolled over the digital thighs.

 

> _“Shepa’d, tanks fer agreein’ ta meet. Feels like we got us a lot ta think about, amiright?”_

“I… is that a Brooklyn… no… it’s sorta like… like nothing, actually… why do I sound like that?”

“Probably wrote it before a good voice filter for you hit the market,” Col shrugged, “Just extrapolated how you should sound based on the media of your planet and your character archetype.”

“Archetype?” Kaidan raised an eyebrow and looked back to Shepard’s scandalously short short.

“’Greaser,’ I believe? Based on your hair, perhaps?”

“People…” he paused the playback, his voice dropped to a hushed tone. “People don’t _really_ think of me like that, do they? I mean, just because a guy takes care of himself… do… do people think I’m vain or something?” His finger absentmindedly stroked the streak of gray down his sideburn. Col laughed.

“Who can say?”

“And that outfit Shepard’s wearing. Have these people ever seen Shepard? He never wears anything except his uniform. I’m not even sure he owns any civvies, for god’s sakes! Hell, I _wish_ he’d get into some casual clothes once in a while—I mean, well, uh—because it’d be good for him. And… and I would _know_ if owned shorts that… short.” Kaidan gulped as Col regarded him wryly.

“Real people can be boring. Austere. Slow to act. Sometimes the only way to humanize a hero is to exaggerate their ‘humanity:’ the way they dress, the way they act, the way they love. Sometimes people need to create another universe where their heroes can be relatable. And in this universe, Commander Shepard prefers fishnet.”

Kaidan resumed the playback.

 

> _“Yes Kaidan. Say, this is quite the spread you’ve prepared, where did you get this fried chicken on the Citadel?”_
> 
> _“Wull I cooked it, ya silly!”_
> 
> _“All this for me? You know I have a love of fried chicken, cornbread, egg salad, fettuccini alfredo, paprikash, and coconut shrimp!”_
> 
> _“Heh, I pays attenshun”_
> 
> _“Such a fine picnic feels like almost more than just typical friend behavior.”_
> 
> _“Wull, tha’s da thing, Shepa’d. I know we’s been friends a long time, but sometimes I get a look at yo’ ass and it makes me wanna sing. I been in love witchu for a long time, Shep. I was wonderin’ if you wanted to be my boyfriend. You don’t have ta decide now, my best ever asari friend Sheena’s havin’ dis sock-hop—“_

He paused the playback again, grimacing and staring at Shepard’s smiling face and heaving chest beneath the fishnet shirt. Making a pinched, angry noise, he closed the image and scrolled through the column of fics once again.

“This is… I can’t…” he squinted at the list, “’Conversations in Bed?’ What… is that?”

“Exactly as it says,” Col chuckled, “You and Commander Shepard. Laying in bed. Just talking. The author updates whenever news from your campaign comes through the extranet. Not much else happens: lay in bed, discuss the day. Probably best to skip, for now.”

Kaidan made to turn off his omni-tool, shaking his head in disgust, when he noticed a fic called ‘Nightlife’ and selected it. Scrolling through, there was a moment he paused—Shepard in jeans, sunglasses, and a leather jacket, and as he stared he made a low humming in the back of his throat.

“That’s ‘Nightlife,’ isn’t it?” Col leaned over and Kaidan pulled the image of Shepard in casual wear to his chest as if protecting it from prying eyes. “Try Chapter 31!”

Kaidan scrolled forward somewhat reluctantly. A holographic projection of he and Shepard in suits on a dancefloor appeared in the air, the pair dancing cheek to cheek.

 

> _“Here… Benny, here:”_

Kaidan’s brows went up at the image of a bashfully grinning Shepard in formal wear. He swallowed, and the digital Kaidan laughed as he took the digital Shepard’s hand in his and pulled him in at the waist.

 

> _“Yeah, I suppose you should lead, huh?”_ said the holo-Shepard. _“Not much time for dance lessons growing up in a gang…”_
> 
> _”That’s why you’ve got me, Benny.”_ Holo-Kaidan gave him a warm smile and seemed to breathe in the cologne at his throat. _“It’s about time we got a little time to ourselves, eh?”_
> 
> _“Nothing in the universe I’d rather being doing, hon… I’m just… not used to not being in the lead, is all.”_
> 
> _“You can lead in a minute, Benny. Promise.”_
> 
> _“I love you?”_
> 
> _“Are you asking, or telling?”_ holo-Kaidan’s words were sly, but his face seemed vulnerable.
> 
> _“I’m… telling you I love you… but I’m asking… if—“_
> 
> _“—yeah. I love you too.”_

Kaidan looked on as the holographic Spectres softly slow-danced, kissed tenderly beneath a crystal chandelier, and continued to whisper excitedly in one another’s ear. He did not speak when holo-Kaidan gave up the lead and let holo-Shepard take it, but his eyes were soft and he bit his lip gently.

“…dancing would be nice…” he whispered, almost too quiet to be heard.

“Wonderful!” Col exclaimed suddenly, startling Kaidan. “An old story, but one of the more popular ones.”

“Okay…” Kaidan sighed, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. “Okay… umm… that was kinda… nice.”

Col looked as if he might laugh, but seeing the exertion it has caused Kaidan to admit that, he only nodded reverently.

“Often, we need to make our fictional people a ‘realistic world’ to best appreciate them. And our real heroes often require a fictional setting to be understood. As Spectres, we are both, in many ways.” His austere expression dissolved into a wicked smile, “And you’re certain to find more you enjoy among the thousands of stories published to date!” He snickered. The car came down to rest outside the arena and Kaidan buried his head in his hands, laughing maniacally.

“I’m so confused and _really_ need to shoot something!” He popped open the door and stretched his back.

“Ah, stately Tiberius Towers.” Col ignored him, looked up at the apartment complex across the way from the Arena. “Glamorous living. Shepard’s staying there, I’ve heard.”

“Yeah, Admiral Anderson of the Alliance lent him his apartment,” Kaidan said absentmindedly, turning his back to Col and scrolling back through the stories on his arm. Shepard in suspenders briefly appeared on his arm again before he turned off the omni-tool and shook his head.

“Excellent.” Col stared up the tower for a long moment—inspecting the edifice with a calculating glare--then turned back to Kaidan. “I’ll go get us passes while you answer that call.”

“What call—“ suddenly, Kaidan’s comms chirped. Col was already striding over to the ticket counter and Kaidan tapped his comms.

 _“Kaidan! You there?”_ It was Joker’s voice.

“Yeah Joker, go ahead.” He pressed a finger to his ear to block out some of the street noise and wandered away from the vorcha street performer.

_“Shepard’s in trouble! He invited me to sushi at that Ryuusei place on the strip with the really classy food and the French guy at the door calling you ‘Monsieur’ and stuff except he didn’t actually invite me because there was this Alliance analyst—Brooks—who, I dunno must’ve hacked my messages because she was the one who set up the meeting—“_

“Joker…”

_“—saying that a bunch of guys were out to kill Shepard and we were like ‘yeah, duh’ but she said it was some other people but then some guys showed up and shit got real and we were hiding behind a table but then Shepard sent me to get help and used me as bait so he could grab this gun and when I was sneaking out I saw Shepard crash through the floor—“_

“Jeff… hold on...”

_“—you know they’ve got that big fish tank instead of a floor—and I haven’t gotten in touch with him yet—“_

“Joker!”

_“—but I thought I would give you a call first because, you know, you’re his burly Spectre boyfriend and everything—“_

“JOKER! Slow down, you’re going to be alright.

_“Yeah, says the man with sturdy bones and a healthy pancreas.”_

“Start over. Shepard’s in trouble, I’m on the strip, hit me with the pertinents.”

_“We don’t have time for one of your ‘let’s-all-hold-hands’ heart to hearts, Kaidan! There were guys with guns, Shepard fell through the fish tank. Through. The. Fish. Tank.”_

“Is he okay?” Kaidan tensed.

_”Banged up, but moving.”_

“Okay… alright, so who is this person you mentioned?”

_“Brooks, some Alliance analyst. She warned us about these guys. I think she was with Shepard.”_

“Joker, I’m in armor and I’m making my way over. Contact Garrus, get a hold of anyone you can, we’ll be evacing Shepard to his apartment. Send me a nav point on Shepard’s last known location.”

_“Roger. I’m all over it.”_

Col swaggered out of the Arena and approached beaming. Kaidan shut off his comms and immediately lit up blue before taking a deep breath and letting his biotics fade again.

“Looks like we can schedule a match within the next 15 minutes!” Col said, holding his arms aloft victorious. “What’s your pleasure? Geth? Reapers?”

“Shit.” Kaidan shook his head, “Col, I’m so sorry to run out on you, but it sounds like there’s an incident with the ship and I’m needed. Can we rain-check?”

“Of course, Kaidan.” Col’s face was positively serene at hearing the news. “What a pity. Oh well. Hope you get to take out some of your frustrations. My regards to Shepard. Enjoy the ‘fanfic!’”

He watched Kaidan stolidly as the Major ran off, and when Kaidan turned his head to look back, the air shimmered and Col Vedirus was gone from the street.

++

“Brooks.”

_“This is Brooks, go ahead, Major.”_

“I’m a few minutes out from the sky car lot, what’s the silhouette on these mercs?” Kaidan jogged briskly down a darkened corridor.

There was a long silence on the other end of the comm channel.

_“The umm… what? Sorry. What? Sorry!”_

“What do they look like, Brooks? I don’t wanna jump out with my gun drawn on civilians. I need to be able to ID them at a distance.”

 _“Yeah, oh okay. Ummmm… boxy… black uniforms… glowing green eyes…”_ She trailed off, _“Little… antennae thing…”_

“Roger, ‘bout to get busy in here. Alenko out.”

Kaidan’s Spectre codes opened another locked door for him, unfortunately opening directly onto a team of two armed men wearing boxy black armor with green eyes.

The surprised mercs raised their guns.

Kaidan’s fist glowed blue.

His biotics pierced straight through one merc’s kinetic barriers and smashed his faceplate. Whirling away, the butt of the second merc’s rifle struck his face, bouncing off his barrier but still catching him off balance.

He hit the ground hard—tried to sweep the merc’s feet out from under him. The merc stumbled back and Kaidan quickly set his omni-tool to jam any outgoing comms signals.

He scrabbled up as the merc raised his gun again and caught the rifle.

The two struggled over the weapon, the grunting of the merc’s effort coming out of his helmet as a strangely mechanical gurgle. Kaidan got a foot on the wall behind him: lunged forward, forcing the merc to stumble…

…and without a sound Kaidan forced him up to and over a railing. The man flailed for a split second before plummeting down into the empty air of the street.

Kaidan turned back to inspect the other merc when his comms beeped.

_“Kaidan, it’s Garrus. How’re you doing getting to Shepard?”_

“I’ll be to this car lot in a second. Encountering some resistance, but so far I’ve jammed all comms and there hasn’t been a shot fired. I’m gonna try to keep the element of surprise—“

A klaxon rang out in the street accompanied by some distant ‘get him’ comms chatter. Kaidan dashed forward, pressing himself into a wall when he saw some mercs down the corridor.

“Shepard, what’re you doing? I heard that from here!”

Shepard’s reply came back wearily sarcastic. _“It’s all under control.”_ His voice dissolved to static as the whoosh of his biotic field interrupted the signal.

 _“Was that… some kind of alarm,”_ Garrus intoned. _“What’s going on?”_

 _“Thought I’d make things more interesting_!” Shepard shouted over the rifle fire on his side of the conversation.

 _“Of course you did.”_ Garrus sounded unimpressed.

“Tripped an alarm using his Spectre codes, I’ll bet.” Kaidan said to Garrus, muting the channel with Shepard, “Would it kill him to learn a few basic hacks?”

 _“Well, assuming he lives through this, I’m sure you can have a nice stern chat with him.”_ Garrus replied with a dry sigh.

“Not a joke I wanna hear right now, Garrus.”

 _“He’s fine, Kaidan,”_ Garrus urged.

“Shepard,” Kaidan reopened the line with Ben, “Brooks sent me the nav point for the skycar lot; I’m on my way.”

 _“Good.”_ More alarms on Shepard’s end. Kaidan crept out around the corner he was pressed into and tried to get a good look at the two mercs down the corridor.

“What do we know about these mercenaries?”

_“They have guns and don’t like me.”_

“Very helpful, thanks.” Kaidan rolled his eyes, closing the channel. “Garrus, I’ll meet up with Shepard in a minute, can you get back to his apartment and make sure it’s secure?”

_“On it.”_

“Of course, you think you’re gonna finally get a little bit of shore leave and then someone’s trying to kill you.” Kaidan leaned around the corner, omni-tool lit, and a spark flashed around the closest merc, shattering his barriers.

Kaidan threw him into his partner with his biotics and ran up, omni-blade plunging into the merc before he could right himself.

“I wish Shepard could catch a break, Garrus,” he said through grit teeth, eyeing up the other opponent as he scrambled up. “You know, hit a beach somewhere, go for a swim. Spend a week at a resort somewhere. Wouldn’t even have to be fancy. Hell, a picnic.” He threw the remaining merc into a wall with deadly force, “Hell, he can wear some short shorts and a fishnet shirt, even.”

_“…if there’s a story here, I’m sure I’ll hear about it when it becomes important to the mission.”_

“Sorry, just feeling a little—“

_“Horny?”_

“—heightened.”

_“Ah. Mmm. Hmmm. I get it. Well, I’ve had some of my best brawls while I was a bit… heightened.”_

Kaidan surveyed the dead mercs, grumbled, and crouched on towards the lot.

“Alright, I may be working off some… tension,” he whispered over the comms.

_“I imagine you and Shepard had better plans with how you’d spend your shore leave than saving each other’s lives again.”_

“Heh, you try not to bring your work home…” Kaidan crept into the car lot and spied two mercs listening intently on their headsets, they took off toward the west entrance, taking up ambush positions.

_“Well, you get Shepard out of there, and I’ll make sure the two of you have a safe place to celebrate, hmm?”_

“Deal.” Kaidan closed the channel and surveyed the scene. The mercs seemed to be operating under the assumption Shepard was seconds away from entering the car lot. Kaidan rose up from behind his chosen hiding place and confidently swaggered over to the mercs. They didn’t even turn in his direction until he spoke:

“Excuse me is this the latest model—“ he threw up a barrier as their rifles began rattling away at him. Just then, Shepard appeared at the door. Kaidan set his jaw, his barrier absorbing their fire. After a one-two neural shock, biotic body slam combo, they lay limp at Shepard’s feet as he emerged onto the lot. His posture loosened when he spied Kaidan. The blue static glow bled off as he sauntered up to a dazed Ben.

“Seems like you’re having a bad day, Shepard.”

“You could say that,” the relief was evident in the smirk spreading across Ben’s face.

“Heh! Landing pad’s over there, but it’s behind a locked gate.”

“Let’s look for a control panel.” Shepard said.

Kaidan seemed to get a look at his jeans and leather jacket as if noticing them for the first time. He gawked, turning his whole body around to appraise Shepard’s backside. The uncharacteristic audacity of the action made Shepard do a double take at his lover’s hungry expression.

“Nice… outfit…”

Shepard met his eye with an all-business expression.

“Ah. Control Panel. Right.” Kaidan grinned and drew his rifle as Shepard fought the smile that was creeping onto his lips, rolling his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have no idea how many Spectre Fantasy Forum posts I've written to flesh out what different aliens writing fanfic would sound like...
> 
> Next Chapter:  
> Prepping for the Casino infiltration, Kaidan and Wrex have a nice chat.


	25. The Difference between a Soldier and a Warrior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While on shore leave on the Citadel, Kaidan and Shepard are going to infiltrate a casino in fancy dress. EDI and Shepard talk modern art. Kaidan is the wet-towel of philosophical discourse on Wrex's bawdiness.

When the meeting to plan the casino infiltration had broken up, EDI stayed near the table regarding the painting hanging on the back-wall of the dining room. As the different members of the crew drifted back into the rest of the house or left to make preparations, Shepard joined her.

“See anything interesting?” He asked, leaning back on the table.

“I have recently begun undertaking a serious study of the arts using several university courses available through extranet sites,” she said. “However, they make mention of a ‘human element’ in interpreting the value of art which I feel I may yet be lacking. Tell, me: what do you believe to be the nature of the pieces in this apartment?”

“I’m probably the wrong person to ask, EDI,” he said, uneasy. “Best as I can figure, they’re supposed to evoke an emotion. Or… represent something? I’m just as in the dark as you are on this.”

EDI nodded, knowingly.

 “I see. Kaidan once had a discussion with me which led me to believe that uncertainty about certain feelings is, in fact, a trait which relates me more to ‘the human experience’ rather than alienating me from it. It seems ‘art’ is another of these!”

“Or it could just be me,” Shepard frowned, “What was the first?”

“Love.”

“…oh.”

“Shepard,” she turned her attention back to the painting, “when you find yourself confronted by a lack of understanding regarding your relationship to something—say, a piece of art—does it cause you to consider the context of your relationships with other things?”

 “Does it make me question how well I really know what I think I know? I suppose.” He frowned.

“I have hypothesized that if others of my friends are as confused by certain concepts as I am, than this will help me to relate to them. United in mutual confusion, rather than mutual understanding. A medium such as this may be worth exploring.”

“Why not?” Shepard said after a moment’s thought, “You should try it, EDI.”

“Thank you for your encouragement, Shepard.” She crossed her arms behind her back and gave the painting one final look. “Conversations such as this one have helped me realize how much utility I have outside of my original function. It has been illuminating to discover how much of that added utility has its foundation in the relationships I wish to cultivate.”

Shepard’s gaze had drifted to the model of the Normandy SR-1 on the table.

“We do a lot for the people we care about,” he said, nodding. “ _Because_ we care about them.”

EDI turned as well to size up the model.

“Perhaps I will requisition that the Normandy’s hull be painted in the style of this painting. It would improve morale and display my individuality.”

“…that was a joke, right?”

“That was a joke.”

++

“ _Major_ Kaidan Alenko.” Wrex’s deep basso shouted across the boardwalk as he emerged from the Tiberius Towers lobby. Kaidan shook his head and laughed as the krogan approached. “Somebody screwed up on that one, huh?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kaidan chuckled. “You’ve got a whole planet believing you’re leadership material, Wrex!”

Wrex crowed with laughter and slapped Kaidan on the back. The human barely kept his feet.

“Good to see you again, kid! Just like old times: you, me, and Shepard against a buncha faceless mercs! Feels good to get off my ass and do some killing.”

Wrex stretched an arm behind his head with a grunt as if to demonstrate how stiff he’d become.

“Guess we should be glad you smuggle a shotgun to all of your diplomatic meetings with the Council.”

“Never leave home without it. C-Sec finally stopped even bothering to get it out of my hands when I dock.” He followed close behind as Kaidan went to select a rental sky-car from a terminal at one end of the Silversun Strip. Wrex moved to drive, but Kaidan gave him a withering look as he removed his credit chit from the terminal. The krogan chuckled and got in the passenger side instead. “Say, your biotics were lookin’ good today; guess you didn’t let ‘em take out that old chip huh?”

 “No way. I’m not letting doctors back in my head.” Kaidan climbed in and they lifted off, descending into the traffic in the inter-ward fast lanes. “I’d be more of a babbling idiot than I already am.”

“Heh, if you say so.” Wrex was crammed into the passenger seat, knees pressed practically to his chest, pinned by the dashboard. “You’re gonna wanna take a left up here.”

“I know how to get to the Presidium, Wrex. If I had known you were gonna be backseat driving the whole time I would’ve left you at Shepard’s.”

“Say, let’s stop by Chora’s Den on the way, eh? Then it’ll _really_ be like old times.” Wrex fumbled, short arms trying to reach down the side of the seat to find the control to move it back.

“Wrex, I have exactly 3 hours to get to the Presidium, get fitted for a tux, shower, pick-up Brooks, and make it all the way back to the casino,” Kaidan said, grin tempering the weariness of his tone. “And you… why the hell are you coming along again?”

“I need to let my men know I’m gonna be working this thing with you guys for a little while. Why do humans have to make these switches so hard…” One finger found the slide control, and his seat began to slowly slide backwards.

“Yeah, but you’re not gonna tell them what we’re doing, right? We don’t know how deep this thing with Shepard goes.”

“Bah! Whadda you take me for? I used to kill guys like Shepard for a living!” he roared, still slowly scooching back in the tiny seat. “I can keep my mouth shut.”

“You keeping your mouth shut. That really _would_ be like old times.” Kaidan suppressed a snicker as the mechanism controlling the position of the passenger seat whined in protest when Wrex shifted his weight.

“You saying I talk too much?” Wrex said grimly, seat now abruptly jerking up and down as he fiddled with another control.

“I’m saying you never used to talk at all.” He wiped the smirk from the corner of his mouth with a casual thumb scratch, “I remember you down in the cargo bay all the time. You were a damn gargoyle, Wrex.”

Wrex roared with a laugh “Had nothing to say to you squishy pink little freaks. At least until you proved you were interesting.”

“I’m gonna regret asking, but exactly when did I become interesting?”

“Mm,” Wrex pressed another switch and the seat tipped forward. “Probably that time you threw that krogan battlemaster through a wall, then shot him through the head. Eh heh heh heh.”

“…I don’t even think I remember that.”

“Sure ya do! Therum. We’d just gotten Liara outta her bubble thingy, and then that pyjack battlemaster on Saren’s leash comes up. Shepard goes straight for him—as usual—while I start tearing up the geth, then he blasts Shepard in the gut. Before you can say “quad punch,” you light up, pick him up and throw him into the wall so hard he dents it,” Wrex slapped his shoulder, making the car lurch left, “then run up and get three shots straight in his face!”

“Okay, I think this is coming back to me…” Kaidan swallowed, smiling tentatively.

“I never saw a human pull off anything like that. Hell, most asari commandos would have trouble just stoppin’ that charge. Then here comes little Alenko, tosses a battlemaster aside. Didn’t see you pull out the stops like that very often after that, but I didn’t hafta: once I knew you had it in ya! Guess something must’ve set you off.”

“I don’t really remember, but that was back when I was just starting to use my biotics on living targets again. Hadn’t done that in years.” Kaidan was so pensive he almost missed the merge into the Presidium-bound lane. “Probably didn’t have a feel for it yet.”

“Always thought it was you seeing Shepard go down,” Wrex stretched one leg, then fiddled with the seat controls more.

“Guess that could’ve been it, too…”

“Ha! Alliance Soldier Kaidan Alenko comes to the commander’s rescue! Some things never change, do they? Still pulling out the stops when someone threaten Shepard, huh? Did I see you Reave a merc back there?”

“Yeah.”

“Never seen you use that before.”

“I only learned it in the last year or so.”

Wrex’s seat stopped moving and he leaned in to watch Kaidan’s face.

“You just… picked up Reave?”

“Yeah. …so?”

“I always knew you were a weird one, Kaidan.”

“I was feeling rusty, I had to learn something new.” Kaidan cast a sidelong glance over at Wrex, swerved to avoid a slow moving skycar. “So what?”

“Asari gotta learn that real early or they never pick it up. Aren’t you old, for a human?”

“What? No!”

“Your species makes it, what, like 40 years?”

“I’m not even middle-aged, Wrex!” Kaidan laughed nervously, unconsciously touching the gray hair at his temples.

“Ha. If you say so.” Wrex had returned to toying with the seat controls, and the seatback curved around his back. “Still, weird. Reave.”

“…Comes in handy.” Kaidan continued the run his hand through his hair.

“Coulda used that back in the day.”

“We were always in over our heads back that, weren’t we?” Kaidan finally managed to pry his fingers from his hairline and offered a chuckle. “Not like these days, eh?”

“I sure as hell wouldn’t wanna go back,” Wrex said somberly, even as the seat’s massage function whirred away. “A real cure for the genophage. Was thinking about Virmire just the other day.”

“I was too actually, not too long ago.” Kaidan’s smile became nostalgic.

“Coulda been real different for the two of us.”

“Yeah.”

The neon glow of the Ward interchange briefly dazzled the cockpit, and Kaidan and Wrex passed through in silence.

“…You’re not still kickin’ yourself over that whole ‘why me’ bullshit, are ya?”

“Hm? Oh, no.” Kaidan shook his head with a placid smile. “It could’ve been Ash easy as it could’ve been me. But I’m the one here now, so it’s time to start paying that back. Made peace with that a long time ago.”

“She was a good soldier, Ashley,” Wrex chuckled deep in this throat. “Hated me. Still, fun to fight alongside her, she was tough for a human.”

“Yeah, she sure was.”

“Heh heh heh. You remember the fight Shepard an’ me had on the beach back then? I could see her over in the corner. Sniper rifle up with me in her sites. Ready to shoot me dead. Eager for it, even! Heh heh. We woulda been good friends after that.” He punctuated the statement with a light punch to the dash. “But Shepard: I almost shot his face off!”

“Wha! C’mon!” Kaidan scoffed good-naturedly, “We both know you wouldn’t’ve laid a hand on him before he perforated both your hearts.”

“BAH!” Wrex crowed the louder. “I would’ve been wiping his brain matter outta my boot!”

“Then where would the galaxy be?”

“Heh heh, good thing he’s a ‘ask questions first, shoot later’ kinda commander, huh? Never thought I would admire a guy like that.”

 “I’ll bet,” Kaidan smirked.

“Say, you and Shepard seem pretty chummy. You two havin’ a thing?” Wrex nudged the wrong control and the seat back careened backwards. Wrex went flying back with a muffled curse. Kaidan guffawed at Wrex’s flailing before the smile on his face morphed to a defensive half-smirk as the question sank in.

“What gave us away?”

“Take your pick,” Wrex flailed for a moment, then began righting himself—slowly—with the seatback control. “Your little ‘we’ll carve out some time for the two of us’ or you two eye fuckin’ each other in front of the fireplace. How long you two been goin’ at it? Way back while we were chasin’ Saren?”

“No.” Kaidan bit his lip, rubbed the back of his neck, “Not until recently actually.”

“You sure about that?”

“What? Umm… yeah.”

“Huh.” Wrex shrugged. “Whenever you and me would shoot the shit on the Normandy, you’d give Shepard the eyes any time he came to mess around with our lockers.”

“Ha!” Kaidan belted, too loud. “Well I’m pretty sure I’ve never given anyone ‘the eyes’ in my whole life, and I didn’t really even start _thinking_ about Shepard that way till… well... Let’s just say I didn’t think about him like that till he got back from the Collector mission.”

“You didn’t think he was fuckable?” Wrex wore a sinister smirk.

“I… I guess I realized he was attractive sure,” Kaidan’s hands squeezed around the steering wheel. “Didn’t see how it applied to me though. Necessarily.”

“You didn’t wanna fuck him?”

“I don’t really think about people like that straight off, Wrex.”

“You were always fixing that console outside his cabin.”

“It was always breaking...!”

Wrex groaned and shook his head.

“Am I outta my mind here? The late night talks in the mess? The way he would run up to talk to you after _every_ mission? The way you told me you were going to knock Udina’s head in for disrespecting Shepard? You get why I’m confused, right?”

“No, not really,” Kaidan laughed nervously.

“Bah!” Wrex waved an arm in the air as if to banish Kaidan’s dissembling. “But you guys are definitely together, now?”

“Yeah. Yeah we are _now,_ ” Kaidan said, still chuckling self-consciously. “As in recently. As of not-very-long-ago.”

“This is making you feel nervous, huh?” Wrex asked wickedly.

“Not nervous,” Kaidan licked his lips, brow furrowed. “Just not something I’m used to… talking about. And you’re imagining things.”

“I been around long enough to know when I’ve got someone backed into a corner.”

“Backed into, whu—“ Kaidan scoffed, his confidence somewhat forced. “You’re not gonna make me… _nervous_ just making stuff up about me and Shepard back on the SR-1!”

The walls of the ward arms rose up around them as they transited into the Presidium ring. In the darkness and flash of neon, Wrex’s beady eyes flickered in the darkness. His voice coming out in a leering chuckle.

“How’s the sex?”

Kaidan suppressed a wide-eyed guffaw in the darkness, and by the time they emerged onto the Presidium, he had composed himself with considerable effort and affixed a steely look to his face. Turning  to return Wrex’s stare, he grinned.

“It’s fucking awesome. Total bliss.”

“AhhhhhHAAA!” Wrex roared with laughter and slapped Kaidan’s shoulder, “There he is! Stuffy _Major_ Kaidan Alenko finally coming out of his shell! Shepard’s gotta quad on him for sure! Bet he knows how to sling a fuck!”

“Hey! What about me?” Kaidan laughed, brow still furrowed.

“Hell! You guys are never gonna stop surprising me.”  He banged the dash again with a loud laugh. “And here I thought that old timid Kaidan Alenko would get all quiet talking about banging the Hero of the Citadel.”

“Gotta stay interesting, Wrex.”

“Hahaha!” Wrex slapped his back again “Between you and Shepard, you’ve got nothing to worry about! Hell, if the two of you ever make babies… Can two human males make babies?”

“No,” Kaidan glanced sidelong at Wrex.

“Ahh! So it’s just a physical thing.”

“I mean, well, it’s more than that.” Kaidan ran a hand through his hair again, “We—that is, I mean—we can’t procreate, but… y’know.”

“You’re gonna adopt someone else’s kid?”

“No, I mean—well, maybe…” Kaidan chuckled nervously, “Anyway it’s not always a ‘procreate’ deal when humans decide to mate…”

“Don’t gotta tell me that.” Wrex shrugged, “For centuries, all the Krogan women lived in separate camps from the males. You have fun other ways. But we don’t think about our sexual partners as the same thing as a ‘mate:’ not really mates at all on Tuchanka with the genophage.”

“Okay, well… I guess you could say I see Shepard as my mate. We’re, uh… we’re committed. I think. I’d say. I’m committed.”

“Well, I’ll say this, you and Shepard are sure weird enough to keep each other in good company. Congratulations, kid.” He scratched at a chip in the breast-plate of his armor. “When’d it become official?”

“What do you mean? How long have we been dating?”

“Naw, was there a ceremony? What do humans do, probably no sacrifices involved, huh? Some kind of wedding?”

“Oh, we’re not official like that,” Kaidan said, biting his lip.

“Good. Thought for a second you didn’t invite Uncle Urdnot.”

Kaidan laughed.

“I dunno, Wrex. We haven’t really talked about that step.”

“So you’re still hoping to find someone to mate with, make babies? Human race is gonna need some repopulating once the war’s over.”

“No. What? Why would you—No.” Kaidan gave him a bewildered look, “No, Shepard is the one. Definitely. But you know. It hasn’t been that long.”

“But you’re sure about it,” Wrex stated, now brushing a bit of caked on dirt off his greaves.

“I mean… yeah.”

“So human mating traditions aren’t based on reproduction. You’re not interested in making babies, and you’re sure you want to be mated with Shepard.”  He licked his thumb and scrubbed at the caked on dirt. “So why wait?”

“Well there’s a war…” Kaidan stammered, “and… it just hasn’t been that long, okay? Some people don’t even really like doing actual ceremonies at all. I dunno. We’ve never talked about it.”

“But you guys have been at this for years.”

“We really haven’t Wrex, we weren’t an item back then.”

“Does Shepard know that? Pretty sure he gave you a couple look overs...”

“No! I mean _yes_ he knows! And what? Wait, no. I mean, sure he says he was attracted to me—“

“Oh! So you’ve talked about _that_.” Wrex gave him an wicked smile.

“Sure, but just because we were attracted to each other doesn’t mean we were—“

“You said you didn’t think of him that way till after the Collector business.”

“I mean, I _understood_ that Shepard was attractive.” Kaidan’s voice was getting progressively louder, “Like I said.”

“You’re tellin’ me if he woulda walked up to you by the fucking panel of yours on the Normandy and invited you back into his cabin for a chance at that body of his, you woulda turned him down?”

Kaidan was silent for a long moment.

“…yeah.”

“BAH!” Wrex punched his arm, “Bullshit!”

“Are you kidding?” Kaidan shot back, “I was so worried about the chain of command back then, it took me weeks to finally start calling him ‘Shepard.’” Kaidan shifted awkwardly behind the wheel, “And I fell for Shepard slow. I don’t trust people quickly—not even Shepard—but… he proved he was worth believing in. But… Okay, so let’s say that if Shepard had made a move back then… I woulda thought about it really hard.”

“Look how far you’ve come. Bet by now you’ve got sappy pet-names and everything.”

“I do not!” Kaidan roared with laughter, “You win, Wrex. I’m really, _really_ done talking about this. This is me being meek Kaidan Alenko again and admitting that this makes me feel really uncomfortable.”

“Whadda ya call each other in bed?” Wrex asked loudly over Kaidan’s objections, arms crossed. “Some cutesy bullshit?”

“What? No. I… Mostly I just call him ‘Ben.’”

“HA!” Wrex bellowed, “I knew it! What’s that, some kind of fluffy earth animal thing?”

Kaidan blinked.

“What? ‘Ben?’”

“Yeah, what’s it mean? I bet it’s so sweet and adorable I’m gonna puke.”

Kaidan looked away from the windshield to raise an eyebrow at the krogan.

“It’s… it’s Shepard’s name, Wrex.”

“Huh?”

“Like how my name is Kaidan Alenko? Shepard’s name is ‘Ben Shepard.’”

“Huh.” Wrex quickly looked away, then muttered. “I always thought it was ‘Commander…’”

“That’s… that’s actually hilarious that you didn’t know that.”

“I don’t give a shit about humans. They’re easy to kill, that’s all I need to know,” Wrex crowed defensively and turned to the window in a huff.

“Yeah, good to see that sitting on your ass all day ruling a planet hasn’t, uh, dulled your edge.” Kaidan snorted another laugh when Wrex’s seat bottomed out with a thud.

“Ha! Krogans are warriors first, whatever else they end up. Just like you and Shepard.”

The Presidium slid by outside the windows, and Kaidan sighed heavily.

“The older I get, the more exhausting that sounds, honestly.”

“What! You’re not gonna retire on me, are you?”

“Well, not in the next hour,” Kaidan said with a  wry smirk.

“You’re always bangin’ on about being in the Alliance,” Wrex waved the thought away with a large hand. “You’re not gonna retire.”

“I don’t know about that. My dad is… was… an Alliance man through and through, but he retired to have me.”

“You and Shepard can’t have kids.”

“Yeah, I know… doesn’t mean…” Kaidan shrugged. “You quit the warrior life, Wrex.”

“Sure.” Wrex finally seemed satisfied with the position of his seat and kicked his feet up on the dashboard. “I had to clean up the mess of a homeworld I’ve got. United the krogan, cured the genophage. I got no regrets.”

“And krogan mercenaries from all over the galaxy are coming back to Tuchanka, right? Giving up the warrior life. I mean, no offense, but that’s what the krogan are all about.”

“If they know what’s good for ‘em they’ll come back. Being a merc isn’t about the ‘warrior life.’ It’s in our blood, being a gun for hire might scratch the itch, but it doesn’t prove shit. You need to have a people if you want to be a people of warriors. It’s time to come home and repopulate. Make ourselves great again.”

“Yeah. Exactly. So what about me? Let’s say—keep this between us, ‘cuz I’m getting ahead of myself here—but what if Shepard and I wanted to retire? Go back to Earth.”

“I think you’d be pretty bored.” Wrex frowned, turning his shoulders to look at Kaidan, “And you wouldn’t be making babies…”

“Right. Yes. Understood,” Kaidan huffed. “We’re not making babies. But is it… does a soldier serve his people by just… living a normal life?”

“What the hell are you talking about, kid?”

“Especially after all this shit with the Reapers. All this,” Kaidan waved his arms around, empty shop windows on the Presidium, crushes of refugees camping out on the colonnades, “Misery. If life can move on after the galaxy faces extinction… hell, if a soldier can lead a normal life back home—not risking his life in the next new battle, not climbing the ranks and sitting behind a desk—doesn’t _that_ mean we won? When the galaxy can resume its way of life, when a soldier can take up the way of life he fought to protect… is that what it means to _really_ win?”

“I think repopulating all the people the Reapers killed might be pretty important…” Wrex shrugged. Kaidan’s brows scrunched together and he turned to Wrex, incredulous.

“So you don’t think, outside of continuing the species, that it means anything to have soldiers come home?”

“I was born on a planet kept at the brink of extinction by a plague,” Wrex snorted. “So, no.”

“Sure.” Kaidan sighed, “So the only reason to bring a soldier home is so he can make babies and continue the race? So that she can give birth to more soldiers?”

“This is war, kid. Soldiers don’t make an oath to come home. They make an oath to fight.”

“I just think there’s more than that.” Kaidan was rushing ahead with his words now. “Maybe not for everyone. Maybe not even for humans in general. But for me…”

“You wanna go back to Earth? And do what?”

“I _don’t_! Not necessarily. This is just… hypothetical.” He ran a hand through his hair in exasperation, “Isn’t it a _kind_ of symbol for a soldier to live out a long life in peace with someone he loves? Doesn’t it… raise people’s spirits or something. Give them hope in the future to see someone who’s given everything have that sacrifice rewarded?”

Wrex scoffed, “Thought you liked to get your hands dirty.”

“Yeah. I do.” Both hands returned to the steering wheel in a death grip, “Then I taught for a while… And I wanna serve, just—“

“—just you wanna be able to get all domesticated with Shepard and still feel like you’re doing something, huh?”

“Sure. That. Whatever,” Kaidan growled.

“So, do it.” Wrex picked at his teeth, looking at the morsel caught on his finger-tip before brushing it off on his armor.

“I took an oath to serve...”

“And you think it’s selfish to just go traipsin’ back to Earth with Shepard on your own and do whatever planet-bound humans do?”

“Sometimes it seems selfish. Yeah,” Kaidan said quietly.

“So?”

“Hm?”

“Who cares if it’s selfish, kid. You said you wanted to serve your people, and you saved the whole damn galaxy. By the time this is done, we’ll have saved the galaxy twice! You’re entitled. If you don’t wanna be a soldier, stop bein’ a soldier. You don’t stop being a warrior when you quit being a soldier.”

“But you’re gonna go back to Tuchanka after this and start rebuilding. You’re still going to be serving your people.”

“Bah! You and Shepard don’t even know the first thing about how to tell the world to fuck off, or else neither of you would be in this place to begin with. You think it’s selfish to go back to Earth and be with Shepard? Screw it. I don’t know all that… whatever about soldiers serving by not being soldiers or whatever you were rambling about; but you and Shepard are warriors first. Wherever you end up and whatever made you end up there, you’re going to be doing more for your people than any hundred of these stuffed shirts walkin’ around in uniforms playing soldier.”

Kaidan was quiet the remainder of the ride, and shortly the car came to rest outside the tailor on the Presidium. Wrex hopped out and came around to take the driver’s seat, ignoring Kaidan’s glare as he regarded the elder krogan.

“Wrex. Thanks…” his voice softened as Wrex began adjusting the driver’s seat. “It’s been too long since we talked.”

“Sure thing,” Wrex supplied. “Now, long as this car’s on your credit chit, I’m gonna swing by that noodle place.” The car lifted off before Wrex had closed the doors.

“YOU RULE A WHOLE PLANET! RENT YOUR OWN DAMN SKYCAR!”

++

Shepard stood staring at the sculpture in one corner of the upstairs gallery. It was his apartment now, and his gallery, though the art was still Anderson’s. Ben frowned, crouched down and moved in very close to look at the sculpture from another angle. The new angle didn’t seem to bring him any new revelations.

Instead, he turned his attention to the canvas on the wall: regarding the abstract painting with naked disdain. In the main room below, Steve Cortez had finally decided on a radio station, and the Normandy’s senior staff were talking and laughing and admiring the apartment in clusters of two and three. Shepard had slipped upstairs soon after Brooks and Kaidan had left to retrieve their formal wear for the casino infiltration. Brooks had been a mess of nerves—of course—but once the details of the plan had been hashed out, the rest of the crew seemed to relax.

They were on shore leave after all.

Ben took his time with the painting: scanning his eyes over the canvas from left to right and top to bottom, as if it were a book he could coax the meaning out of. He reached out his hand to feel the texture, but seemed to stop himself as his fingertips hovered over a particularly enticing clump of dried acrylic. He dourly glanced over to size up the remaining art pieces on the balcony, then turned away.

He stopped at the railing when he noticed Joker sitting, panting, on the landing of the steps.

“Joker,” he said, attracting Jeff’s attention. “Enjoying the view from the landing?”

“Laugh it up, Commander,” Joker responded, using a data-pad in his hands to push the brim of his hat off his forehead. “Taking a break climbing the stairs, a little tired after all the saving-your-ass I did today. That and playing decoy so you could take a little swim. But if you wanna make jokes…”

Shepard held his hands up in surrender.

“Alright, alright,” he chuckled. “Forget I said anything. Can’t risk pissing off my best decoy.”

“Aww, your _best_?” Joker said, voice dripping with irony. He struggled to his feet, “Wanted to talk to you about something. I’ll be up in just a sec.”

Shepard nodded and returned to his bedroom. Rifling through the cabinets in the bathroom, he came upon a clean glass and filled it with cold water from the tap to set next to one of the recliners in the corner. He was rooting through the closet when he finally heard Joker limp into the room and sit at the recliner with a creaking groan. He waited for a minute or two at the back of the closet—idly adjusting the way his leather jacket hung on the hanger—allowing Jeff to catch his breath before emerging into the main bedroom and sitting at the corner of the bed.

“Thanks,” Joker mumbled over the lip of the water-glass.

“Sorry about the stairs.”

“Hey, better you catching me climbing those stairs than EDI,” Jeff scoffed. “Last thing I need is my girlfriend carrying me up the stairs like we’re newly weds. Was afraid for a minute you were going to gimme the old biotic elevator trick. I know _Liara_ would be itching to offer her assistance.”

“I’m mostly good at smashing things,” Ben said, scratching at the stubble on his chin. “Just good at killing people. Not art. Not precise biotics. So controlled lifts have never been my strong suit. I’ll leave the careful biotic work to Kaidan. A—and Liara,” he finished quickly.

“Yeah,” Jeff downed the water in a final gulp and set the glass aside. “Date night with the Major tonight, huh? Fancy dress casino heist?”

“Hardly,” Shepard scoffed, “just another mission. Different kind of armor is all.”

Joker ran his finger around the edge of the glass for a moment before clearing his throat.

 “I uh, wanted to say thanks for your advice with EDI. She told me you talked to her a little bit back before the mess with Udina.”

“You two are good together. Happy I could help.”  

“We are,” Jeff smiled smugly. “Who woulda thought the middle of a war was the perfect time to finally meet someone, huh? And… uh, you and the major making it work?”

Shepard nodded, smiling impassively. Joker blinked after him for a moment before continuing awkwardly.

 “Speaking of, how come you didn’t leave with Wrex and him to get yourself a tux?” 

“Anderson’s is in the closet from when he had to do formal functions for the Council,” Shepard replied. “Figured he won’t be using it anytime soon.”

Jeff quirked an eyebrow.

“…you just knew he left a tuxedo behind?”

“I guessed. I was right though. It’ll be a little tight through the shoulders.”

“I can’t believe he left you this place,” Jeff gestured to the room, leaning over slightly to try to glimpse the hot tub James had been speaking about earlier. “I don’t think I’d just give away someplace like this.”

“I think he fell in love with London again,” Shepard said.

“Yeah, place has gotta be a wreck though, right?”

“Home is home.”

“Any home I ever had is gone,” Joker shrugged. “Except the Normandy. And now I’m dating her, added incentive to not piss her off.”

“Never felt ‘at home’ too many places,” Shepard said soberly, though the hint of a practiced, placid smile still clung to the corner of his mouth. “Never had much of a family. But I suppose I always thought of ‘home’ as more of the right person than the right place.”

“Got it,” Jeff stretched the words out sarcastically. “So, you’ll just send me the deed to this place, huh?”

“ _You?_ Settling down?” Ben laughed.

“Settling down planetside isn’t really my style, but a place like the Citadel?” Joker shifted in his chair, “Hell, I don’t even like shore leave. But with the right company it hasn’t been so bad. If Admiral Anderson can settle down their might be hope for anyone.”

“Hm.” Shepard’s gaze was wandering around the room, deep in thought. He stroked his thumb over the texture on the collar of his t-shirt.

“Yeah… umm, anyway. That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.” He handed Shepard the data-pad he had carried up the stairs. “Guess the admiral left these out last time he was here. Notes on his bio/.”

“I noticed a few of these,” Shepard said, taking the pad. “Didn’t get a chance to listen to them. Rushed right out to meet you for sushi.”

“Well a folks downstairs have been listening to a couple of them. Found this one in the kitchen. It’s… uh. It’s about you.”

Shepard looked up.

“About me?”

“Uh huh. Just Anderson’s thoughts on you—I didn’t listen to it, just the beginning. But I got the gist. Thought I’d take it out of circulation, y’know? You know how to work all the fan buzz, but I know you’re not a big fan of people prying into your personal life.”

“But this is Anderson’s file, not mine.” Ben blinked, face a blank.

“Sure, yeah, but c’mon!” Joker shrugged, “It’s kinda different than Anderson talking about someone else though, right?”

“Is it?” Shepard’s brow furrowed.

“Are you kidding? He gave you his _house_. You’re practically—“

“—that doesn’t mean—“

“—and that’s not the only…” Joker paused, “…I watched him grieve after we lost you. Yeah, it’s different. Anyway, you should at least be the first to hear it.”

Jeff stood up and limped to the door before his posture relaxed and allowed him to straighten to his full height. Shepard regarded the data-pad in his hands.

“Well, alright then. Thanks, Joker.”

“I make memories, that’s what I do.” He shrugged at the threshold to the bedroom, “When the war’s over we should get some sushi for real. Or, you know, you could just use me as a decoy again and play target practice with whoever’s lined up to pants the galaxy once we clean up the Reapers. Whatever works.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Before and after the casino, Citadel DLC.


	26. The Difference between Fantasy and Distraction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan goes to pick up Maya Brooks for the casino infiltration. Afterwards, the crew of the Normandy prepares to take the Citadel archives. There's a lot of dressing, undressing, distraction, and matching v-necks.

Kaidan stood out—sitting, fidgeting in his tuxedo—in the lobby of the apartment building. Agent Brooks had left Shepard’s apartment the same time Kaidan had, and he was meant to pick her up and deliver her to the casino job. It had taken a lot of hustle to get out of the tailor in time to take a cab to get here by the agreed upon meet-up time, but by now Kaidan had been waiting in the lobby for almost ten minutes.

It was clearly an apartment complex originally designed for the elcor—the elevator was jumbo, the seats wide and low to the ground—and was probably fashioned by the Keepers about the same time the elcor established an embassy on the Citadel. Not the sort of place a human would usually be living. Brooks had apologized about that over and over: it was hard to find, the elcor had trouble telling one human from another, so on and so forth.

Kaidan huffed and checked the time on his omni-tool, but his eye was soon drawn to the Recent Activations submenu. Col Vedirus’ list of stories was still open in a separate tab.

Grinding his teeth, Kaidan scrolled through the list of titles, eyebrows scrunching together when he read a particular title. With a look to the left and right, eyeing up the empty lobby, he selected a time-stamp about a third of the way through _Priority: Earth!_ and played the holo.

> _Shepard and Kaidan stood, bloody, atop the wreckage of an alliance dreadnought crashed into English Bay. They were shoulder to shoulder, rifles blazing, mowing down an unseen enemy on either side._
> 
> _“Why, Shepard!?” Kaidan cried over the gunfire, “Why did no one believe you about the Reapers!?”_
> 
> _“Too blind to see the truth, Commander!” Shepard said, his voice modulator rendering his diction formal in the extreme, “But even blind fools need saving, and that’s what I do!”_
> 
> _“Now the Reapers are here, and_ we _have to pay the price!” Holo-Kaidan kicked a creature that looked vaguely like a Collector and used biotics to hurl it out of frame._
> 
> _“Part of the job!”_
> 
> _The Normandy descended from the sky and the cargo bay opened._
> 
> _“We need to go, Shepard! We’re no good here!” Kaidan grabbed Shepard’s shoulder, pausing his firing for a moment._
> 
> _“You go! Save yourself! I’ll stay and fight for **Earth**!” Shepard elbowed Kaidan away, but the holo-Commander would not be so easily dismissed._
> 
> _“No!” Kaidan shouted over the sound of the Normandy, “You can’t do any good here! Come with me and we’ll regroup!”_
> 
> _“You can do it, Kaidan! I’m no use anymore!”_
> 
> _“Don’t say that, Shepard!” Kaidan looked aghast, “We need you!”_
> 
> _“You don’t!”_
> 
> _“I’m not leaving you, Shepard!”_
> 
> _“You have to!”_
> 
> _“I won’t!” Kaidan roughly seized Shepard by the waist and pulled him hard towards the open bay. Shepard struggled out of his grasp, pivoting in a fury and smacking the chest plate of Kaidan’s armor._
> 
> _“I gave you an order!”_
> 
> _“I won’t follow it!”_
> 
> _“Why!?”_
> 
> _“Because, Shepard!” Kaidan shouted, “I love you goddammit! I_ love _you and I won’t leave you.”_
> 
> _Shepard was speechless until Kaidan closed the distance, embraced him with a dizzying kiss._
> 
> _“I… I love you too, Kaidan.”_
> 
> _And with that, the new lovers stepped aboard the Normandy. Still holding one another, they turned and raised their rifles, firing down into the waves of Collector-like-beings scuttling about as the Normandy departed._

Kaidan sighed, closed the file. It was dated over a year ago. Before Kaidan had become a Spectre, before he had been promoted to Major. Back when Shepard’s return to action was only an extranet myth. The author—WakeyLakey93—had a profile of stories involving Shepard going back to his admittance into Special Tactics, and many stories involved him and Kaidan.

New stories stopped the day before the Reapers actually invaded Earth.

Kaidan closed the directory with another heavy sigh and noticed that the next book in the trilogy he had begun on the Normandy was queued to download. The first chapter of _Manticore_ was displayed for him a moment later, ready to read; and with his eyebrows still furrowed, he spent a long time reading before he noticed the time again.

A psychiatrist had just asked the main character to tell her some of his fantasies,

> _“’All real fantasy is serious. Only faked fantasy is not serious. That is why it is so wrong to impose faked fantasy on children. I shall not laugh at your fantasy. I promise.’”_

The furrow in Kaidan’s brow deepened, and he stood abruptly and wandered to the elevator. Brooks’ apartment was down 5 floors from the lobby, and it didn’t take Kaidan long to find the wide door labeled with the analyst’s apartment number.

“Ummm,” came a voice on the other side of the intercom after Kaidan rang, “H-hello?”

“Brooks,” Kaidan stooped so his face was fully in the camera, angled at a strange height, “It’s Major Alenko. We were supposed to meet up in the lobby almost an hour ago?”

“Oh! Shoot! I’m—I’m so sorry, Major!” The door slid open and Maya Brooks stood there, biting her bottom lip and waving Kaidan in, wearing only deep blue, lacy underwear. “I can’t believe… is it really so late! Oh my—I was talking to my Nana! Her neighbors are batarian refuges and she doesn’t know… oh you don’t care! Come in! I’ll just be another minute!”

Kaidan stepped through the door, checking the time on his omni-tool while Brooks padded softly around the apartment, tossing clothes off of the sofa to offer him a place to sit.

“I just don’t want to keep Shepard waiting,” Kaidan said, absentmindedly reviewing the Ward traffic report, oblivious to Brooks bent over rearranging the pillows on her sofa. “We said we’d be there in another 45, and ETA to the Strip is 43 minutes.”

“I’ll just be a minute! I promise! Make yourself comfortable.” She stood at the door to her bedroom, and for a moment looked sultry as she brushed a long, glossy lock of hair away from her eyes.

“Okay.” Kaidan didn’t look up from his omni-tool, quietly sitting on the couch.

“C-can I get you something to drink? Afraid all I have is whiskey…” she scuttled back out of the doorframe, stood before Kaidan.

“Thanks, but we’re on a mission.” Kaidan called up another traffic report, “Better to just get dressed so we can meet Shepard.”

Brooks hesitated a moment before hurrying back into the bedroom.

“Really sorry to keep you, Major! Feel free to use the vid screen if you want!” she called through the open bedroom door.

“That’s alright,” Kaidan had already opened up _Manticore_ on his omni-tool. “I brought a book.”

“Ugh!” Brooks came out to the living room again, rubbing a lotion into her shoulders, taking her time to arch her back as she spread it down the back of each arm. “You’re all so calm! I’ve never been so nervous in my life! How can you read at a time like this?”

“Not hard, honestly,” Kaidan mumbled, locating his bookmark, “Used to reading on a warship. Helps calm me down, honestly.”

“What are you reading? Anything good? I used to have these quarian romance novels on my omni-tool, but the temptation to read them at my desk was too strong…” she paused and looked up sheepishly at Kaidan.

“It’s a book called _Manticore_. It’s from a trilogy I’ve been reading. I just finished the first book the other day; this is the second.”

“Manticore?” Brooks nose scrunched up, “The mythological thing?” She retreated back into the bedroom. “Is it a fantasy, then?”

“No,” Kaidan called after her, “It’s about… well. I suppose it’s just the life story of a couple people who keep bumping into each other. But actually it’s about the stories we tell about people. How real people with real lives become saints and heroes—where certain details may not matter to history, but they matter more than anything to people who… care.”

Brooks stepped into view again, slowly rolling her pantyhose over her legs. Her voice was more serious when she spoke again.

“How ‘men’ become ‘legends.’”

“Yeah,” Kaidan didn’t look up. “I guess you could say that. That’s probably over-simplifying it… but I haven’t read the whole thing, yet. In this book so far, the son of one of the characters from the last book is in therapy. His father was this big famous businessman and politician—sort of an ass, though—and the son has spent his life trying to make his own way, y’know?” Kaidan frowned, “Not just be a copy of the ‘original,’ if that makes sense.”

“…how does he do?” Brooks asked quietly.

“I don’t know! I’m not very far,” Kaidan chuckled softly.

“Must be terrible to worry about living up to someone else’s legacy…” She said cautiously. “Someone you’re supposed to replace… especially when that person’s a legend.”

“I guess,” Kaidan sighed and looked up. Brooks’ demeanor immediately shifted, and she ducked back into the bedroom.

“I’m sure you know _all_ about legends!” she called. “I still _can’t_ believe I’m working with the crew of the _Normandy!_ ”

“We’re all just trying to get the job done,” Kaidan mumbled, reading his book.

“And Commander Shepard! It’s just… _really_ intimidating to be around him in person!”

Kaidan looked up at that, wrinkling his nose.

“Shepard? Intimidating?”

“D-don’t you think so?” she leaned around the doorframe, “Oh! Dammit, have—have I offended you?”

“No, it’s fine,” Kaidan’s brows still weighed down his expression. “I’m sorry you find him intimidating. Have… you had a chance to talk with him one on one?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Brooks stammered, “But just knowing everything he’s done. He has such a reputation, you know? He’s killed more people than I’ve ever met, saved the galaxy with… with rifles blazing… that’s why I’m glad he’s on our side! A man the galaxy can really get behind!” She bit her lip, “That’s… what all the vids have been saying, anyway.”

Kaidan continued to frown.

“That’s not why people follow Shepard.”

“…right.” Brooks retreated back into the bedroom.

“Rifles blazing…” Kaidan whispered, shaking his head.

“But of course _all_ of you are legends! And it’s obvious even to me— _especially_ to me! The most exciting thing I had done before today was getting tipsy with Hannah and sitting in the splash zone during a trechelog scoop show!” She laughed from inside the bedroom, “And you’re just casually reading to pass the time before we infiltrate a _casino_ to find the man that’s trying to _kill_ the Commander! And you just _read_ before all those dangerous missions! I’d be sick just… constantly.”

“Well,” Kaidan cleared his throat, spoke up. “Well, I mean, to be honest, there isn’t actuall a lot of time to read. I like it though—getting to read a novel or something. I’ve got a week shore leave and… I’m probably going to find a nice shady spot on the Presidium and try to finish this trilogy. Never know when I might get a chance.” Then he added under his breath, “Shepard’s going to be swamped with appointments, anyhow.”

“I think after some of the missions you’ve been through, it’d be hard to ever read again!” Brooks stumbled around the corner trying to step into her heels, dress on but still open at the back. “Fighting the Reapers on Thessia! Barely escaping from Mars—not to mention Earth! I can’t… I can’t even imagine how something like that would change you.”

“Mhm,” Kaidan attempted to adjust the cuffs on his omni-tool arm through the haptic interface. “It really readjusts yours priorities. That’s for sure.”

“Maybe if I would’ve met the Commander before…” Brooked fastened a dangling necklace around her throat. “Before that encounter with those creatures on Despoina!”

Kaidan looked up abruptly.

“…Leviathan?”

“Mm,” she nodded, absentmindedly adjusting the way the necklace hung. “I felt so terrible when I read the report about how much that encounter changed Commander Shepard.”

“Whose report?” Kaidan frowned, stood slowly.

“Well… I…” Maya cast her eyes around the room, “I remember it having _your_ name on it…”

“I didn’t have anything like that in my report.” Kaidan’s eyes narrowed.

“B-but I read a report…” Brooks’ eyes got wide.

“What did it say?”

“Just… that the crew had seen him shivering walking around the Normandy when he returned, that he had been… different. I read it as part of my mission brief with Admiral Hackett. I… I thought it came from you?”

“No.”

“Oh. I must be mistaken...” Brooks could not meet Kaidan’s eyes, “…is it true?”

Kaidan took a deep breath.

“The Commander’s stared death in the face enough times where if it _could’ve_ changed him, it _would’ve_.”

“Oh. Umm, okay. I…” Brooks stepped forward, her features softened. She placed a hand gently on Kaidan’s arm. “I apologize… Kaidan. I didn’t mean to imply anything.” Her voice was gentle. She rubbed softly down Kaidan’s arm, fingers grazing his hand. She turned slowly, pulled her hair over her shoulder, exposing the open back of her dress to Kaidan. Her voice was a soft hum, “Would you… be able to help me fasten this dress?”

Kaidan, brows still furrowed, reached forward and zipped the dress up to Brooks’ shoulder blades. Soon as the zipper as in place, he pivoted to make for the door.

“Come on, we’re already late. I don’t want to keep Shepard waiting.”

Behind him, Brooks rolled her eyes and huffed noiselessly.

Later, when she saw the way Shepard and Kaidan stared at one another on the red carpet, she barely raised an eyebrow.

By the time they were returning to Tiberius Towers and the two Spectres kept drifting together, she didn’t even bat an eye.

++

Exiting the casino had been an odd affair—getting in, they hadn’t wanted to tip of Khan that they had infiltrated his party. But once they found Khan dead, they had no trouble strolling out the front door on Spectre business and leaving C-Sec to clean up the mess.  

EDI, Joker, and Steve had gone to rent three sky cars to transport the team back to the Normandy to equip themselves before storming the archives. They had a window of only six hours during which the archives would not be staffed during the Presidium night-cycle, and that window opened in just over one hour. Liara coordinated some final data-mapping protocols with Glyph, Javik was pacing next to the fireplace warily regarding Wrex, and Tali had taking to plinking out a tune on the piano. Quickly looking around the upstairs once, Kaidan slipped open the sliding door to Shepard’s bedroom.

“Kaidan, hey. What’s up?” Shepard emerged from his closet, still dressed in tuxedo pants, but his chest was bare as he slipped his jacket back onto his shoulders.

“Shoo. You know, you could keep that tux on a little longer.” Kaidan chuckling as he walked over to sit on the bed. Shepard grinned.

“Funny, seeing you in yours just makes me want to tear it off.”

Kaidan guffawed.

“That’s… uh… you’re feeling pretty good tonight, considering a mysterious person’s trying to kill you.”

Ben beamed down at Kaidan, breaths coming in long, even stretches.

“I’ve been worried about the Reapers destroying the galaxy for so long,” he grinned, “It’s nice to know I’m the only target, here.”

“Not so nice for me,” Kaidan smiled, leaning back on his hands. “It’s not every day your boyfriend gets a threat like that: ‘going to steal everything you have and everything you are?’”

Ben’s eyes got wide.

“…boyfriend. Yeah.”

“Focus, Shepard,” Kaidan’s smile turned sultry, he unclasped the collar of his jacket.

“I’m taking the threat _very_ seriously,” Shepard stepped forward until his knee bumped Kaidan’s. “But the more I think about it, it _might_ help relieve some tension to rip that tux off, after all.”

“Careful, Shepard: the house is full of people.”

“My house, my rules.” Shepard leaned down to kiss Kaidan, fingers tangling in his hair. Kaidan put his arms around Ben’s waist just as a shiver coursed down the length of his spine. “I’m sorry our shore leave got… preempted.”

“Business is business. Besides, you probably wouldn’t have taken me anywhere as classy as that casino anyway,” Kaidan said with a glint in his eye. “Would you believe that even with all the people trying to kill you, I’ve still had no less than three separate conversation about the two of us today?”

“Really? Who cares about our relationship?” Shepard rose up and stripped off his jacket with another shiver, shucking his pants down before disappearing into the closet again. Kaidan rose and hovered at the door of the closet for a moment before turning towards the bathroom to inspect the tub.

“Well, Wrex, believe it or not... I’m surprised he hasn’t cornered you yet to give you a high five.”

“I’m sure he’ll get around to it if the killing gets slow,” Shepard’s voice came muffled through the wall.

“Yeah.” Kaidan’s eyes got wide as he stood at the threshold to the bathroom, “Geez, Shepard, this hot tub… it’s… and Anderson just _gave_ you this apartment?”

“Uh huh. And I accepted. I look forward to using that tub very soon, mister.” He emerged and kissed Kaidan’s neck before slipping a white t-shirt over his head. “Wanna change out of that tux?”

“Mm.” Kaidan turned, taking in the sight of Shepard in jeans and a clean shirt, “All of my clothes are in my duffle at the C-Sec bunks.”

“Put on something of mine.”

“It’s okay Shepard, I’ll be changing back into my armor soon as we get to the Normandy anyway.”

“Then it shouldn’t bother you to wear your boyfriend’s clothes for a few minutes, hmm?”

“Nah, they’ll be back with the cars any minute. We need to rush this.” He ran a hand up Shepard’s arm where the skin had dimpled into goosebumps in the latest shiver to work through Ben’s body.

“If Brooks is right, it’ll take them another hour to crack the security on the main archive hall.” He leaned into Kaidan’s touch when his hand cupped Shepard’s ear. “With the shortcut EDI found… we’ve got plenty of time.”

“Hmm… Guess I’m just eager to get this mission done. Once I can get back in contact with Hackett… Talking to Brooks, sounds like this guy might have falsified a report from me....” he stopped short when Shepard shivered. “Are you still feeling so cold? What—“

“—And why is your duffel at C-Sec?” Ben broke in, taking Kaidan’s hands in his. “I thought you were staying with me?”

“I… you never offered.”

“I suppose I assumed.” Ben blinked.

“Oh.” Kaidan shifted his weight and crossed his arms, “Well, I’ve got lots to do while I’m on the Citadel and I suppose I didn’t want to disappoint you if I ended up being gone a lot.”

“Long as you come back every night,” Shepard grinned as he pulled on his N7 leather jacket, stifling another chill.

“And I happen to know half the crew is dying to schedule time with you.”

“Kaidan,” Shepard rested his arms around Kaidan’s waist and nuzzled his chin up into a kiss. “I’m going to make time for everyone. But this shore leave is about _us_. We haven’t had a fair shot at just being… a normal couple. I’ve never really had that… and… I want to see what it feels like.” He beamed at Kaidan, “That’s… what I want. What do you want?”

“I want that too, Ben,” Kaidan murmured, gently stroking Shepard’s cheek.

“Please. Stay here with me. We don’t have to be attached at the hip but… the way this war’s going…”

“Shh. Yeah, I’ll stay here, Shepard.”

“…Please put on some of my clothes?”

“Don’t push it, Ben,” Kaidan chuckled.

“What if I help you change?”

“Fine. But don’t think you’re seducing me, Shepard. Seeing you in civvies already had me pretty hot on that sky car lot, and you passed up your chance then—“

“I was bleeding! 45 blocks with no medi-gel!”

“—I’m gonna make sure this mission’s got my top priority.” Kaidan bumped shoulders with Shepard with a grin as he walked into the closet.

++

“Woooooow. Matching outfits.” Tali regarded Kaidan and Shepard in their identical v-neck t-shirts as the three of them stepped into James’ car. “You guys are really playing up this whole… first human Spectres… thing.”

“Well, just wanted to, y’know, be comfortable.” Kaidan shifted in his seat. Tali had turned her body around in the passenger seat, turning her head back and forth between the two.

“Uh huh. You both look _very_ comfortable.” She said with a sparkle in her voice.

“Why shouldn’t we? We’re on shore leave after all.” Shepard eased back in his seat, fingers dusting over Kaidan’s leg.

“Yeah, tell that to the guys that’re trying to kill us,” James said, bucking the sky car to a hard right to keep up with Cortez ahead of him.

“No, no: not _us_. Just Shepard.”

“Thank you, Tali, for your support.” Shepard rolled his eyes.

“Just saying this goes in the ‘you owe us’ column is all.”

“Easy, Sparks, I don’t know think we wanna see how those books are balanced.”

“Well this should help get us back to ‘even’ at least.”

“I say nobody keeps score and we just get out of this in one piece, enjoy a little R&R, then beat the Reapers,” Shepard said, rolling his eyes.

In a few minutes, their sky cars had arrived at the dry dock and the crew was sorting through their lockers. Garrus had taken Tali over to the workbench to show her how to calibrate her new smart choke mod, Liara had decided to pop into her room for a few extra data-pads, EDI was on the bridge with Joker showing off the latest cyber-warfare suite upgrades to Wrex. Javik watched the workings of the Citadel from the windows in an upper lounge, Cortez attempting to explain to him what the Keepers were and what they did. Practically, most of the team was dressed for the infiltration already, and so Kaidan, James, and Shepard found themselves alone at the lockers slipping out of civilian clothes and pulling out their armor. Brooks had been shuffling uncomfortably over near the shuttle bay controls as the men changed before finally consenting to go on a tour of the ship with Specialist Traynor.

“…that’s one big-ass crate of medi-gel,” James said, surveying the large crate that sat in the middle of the shuttle-bay.

“Here’s to not needing it all.” Kaidan smiled wryly at James and slipped out of his t-shirt and carefully folded it, sitting back on the bench to remove his shoes. James stood in his underwear only, eyes fixed on the chest plate of Shepard’s armor lying on the deck in front of the locker.

“So, _loco_ , when you get N7, do they put the N7 on all your stuff right away? I mean, is it special issue, or do you get it customized? Or…?” He was rubbing his shoulder, avoiding Shepard’s gaze.

“There’s an N7 requisition service. The leather jacket was a gift from my sponsor in the program.” He smiled, stood up and shucked down his pants, tossing them into his locker, then immediately lifted them back out to retrieve the greave he had buried.

Kaidan’s eyes lingered on Shepard’s ass as he bent over to set the greave on the deck next to the chestplate, returning his jeans to a heap at the bottom of his locker.  James shuffled, the muscles across his chest rippling as he stretched awkwardly, as if to keep himself inconspicuous. Shepard mumbled a curse and began digging through the locker again, muttering something about his gauntlets. James finally caught Kaidan’s eye and made a worried face, Kaidan raised an eyebrow.

“First time the three of us have been on a mission since that Leviathan thing, at TGES, huh?” James stated, nervously scratching the tattoo across his chest.

Shepard tensed at the mention, still mostly inside his locker. Kaidan quickly cleared his throat.

“Come a long way since we first worked together on Mars,” he chuckled.

“And this time we brought another driver.” Shepard’s voice echoed from inside the locker before he leaned out frowning with only a single gauntlet. He whirled around and stopped short when he caught sight of Kaidan, now stripped to only his briefs, stepping into his thermal layer.

“Hey! It got the job done, didn’t hear anybody complaining then!” James said, resuming a cocky demeanor. Shepard seemed not to hear: Kaidan slipped the one-piece thermal layer over his shoulders and left the zipper open as he handed the folded t-shirt and jeans to Shepard.

“Here you go, thanks.”

“Why don’t you keep them for now?”

“I’ve got a spare uniform in my locker so I won’t need to borrow them on the ride home.”

“Just keep them for a while, okay?” Shepard grinned brightly. “Besides, they’ll just get lost in my locker.”

Kaidan rolled his eyes and placed the clothes on his top shelf, turned back to James who watched the folded clothes with a confused expression.

“You gonna suit up, Lieutenant, or are you planning on winning over these mercs with your chiseled abs?” Kaidan asked with a smile, stretching his neck to either side.

“Heh, maybe, Major. They get a good look at a specimen of physical excellence, maybe they just decide to call it a night, huh? Whatchu think, _loco_?” James struck a double-bicep pose. Kaidan turned wryly to Shepard, watching where his eyes were looking.

Shepard was fumbling with his thermal layer, eyes darting between his fingers on his zipper and Kaidan’s exposed chest. “Physical excellence, huh Vega? Very subtle. Never one for modesty, are you?”

“I’m wearing underwear, ain’t I?”

“Only because it’s regulations,” Kaidan smirked, reaching for his chest plate.

“If I remember right, Kaidan, you’ve been known to bend a regulation once in a while. Maybe you’re the one to go commando under that thermal layer?” Shepard smirked.

“Couldn’t do that,” Kaidan smirked, “I don’t want you to be distracted. I told you before…” He zipped his thermal layer closed. Shepard frowned. “This mission gets my _top_ priority.”

“…I am so ready to be on shore leave,” Shepard leaned up and kissed Kaidan’s lips. James’ eyes went wide.

“Oh, you two are… huh.”

Kaidan cleared his throat and smiled sidelong up at James, but Ben broke in before he could speak.

“Kaidan and I are together.”

“Well… umm, yeah…” James rubbed the back of his neck where the bandage still covered his new N7 tattoo. “You guys making it work, huh?”

“Yeah,” Shepard breathed, but his eyes were locked on Kaidan’s. The smoldering look they shared made James’ eyebrows shoot up.

 “Oh… umm… cool. I mean, I didn’t… some people had… anyway. That’s awesome. Congratulations. I mean… you two seemed like you were gonna kill each other on Mars is all…” He turned to his locker and fished out his thermal layer, clearing his throat, “I can finish suiting up somewhere else…”

Kaidan looked ruefully up at Shepard, but Ben’s blank stare and ‘who me?’ shrug eventually teased a smile back onto his face.

“Got a bandage on your back there, Vega. New tattoo almost ready to unveil to the world?” Kaidan said trying to stifle a chuckle. James turned around and stared at Shepard agape.

“You didn’t tell him?” James said, a hint of surprise in his voice.

“Tell me what?”

“No, I didn’t tell anyone. That’s what you asked.”

“I don’t want you to keep secrets from your boyf—from the Major.”

“Conversation between you two are none of my business, James,” Kaidan assured, standing up and fitting on his chest plate.

James rapidly glanced back and forth between Shepard and Kaidan. Then squared off his shoulders again and grinned.

“Alright. Major, _Loco_ : Let’s go storm this archive and get you two back to your shore leave, eh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter  
> Post-Clone


	27. The Difference between a Clone and the Real Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard just wants his vacation back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sincerely sorry about the delay! The next chapter will be up by the end of the week.

Through the blue haze of the force-field, the glint in the Clone’s eyes looked absolutely sinister.

With three teams cutting their way through the mercs in the Citadel archive, no one had commented on how easy their advancement had ultimately been. When Shepard’s team had lost contact with the other teams at level 37 of the Citadel Archives, the commander’s eyes narrowed. Moments later: a scream from further up the passage, and as Shepard’s team rushed forward to help Brooks, they found themselves locked in a force-field as she and the clone set about erasing Ben from the Spectre profile, replaced with the clone’s unique biometrics.

“The minute—the _second_ I get out of here,” Ben growled through the hum of the field, “I’m going to take your head and mount it in the CIC!”

Liara spared the smallest of glances at Kaidan, who stood impassive.

“Then,” Shepard spat, when the clone and Brooks exchanged a look, “I’m gonna take _her_ head and mount it next to yours.”

Brooks’ expression wavered, confused by the vitriol.

“Then I’m gonna take _both_ your heads and space them out the airlock!” Shepard finished in a maniacal roar, folding his arms.

“Count me in,” Kaidan added.

The clone stared on, softly running his fingertip over a pouch on his armored vest; but it took barely any time for Brooks to gather her composure.

“That sounds very dramatic,” she smiled, placid, “and—if someone like, say Commander Shepard made the threat—I’d be worried. But you’re not Commander Shepard. Not anymore.”

“You had Miranda,” Clone Shepard spoke up, “I have her. Mine has more bite.”

“It was fun while it lasted,” Brookes cooed, she gave an especial look to Kaidan and winked.  He broke eye-contact, frantically searching around the vault for a weakness to exploit. The clone activated a nearby terminal.

“Do you remember this?” he asked. I was a recording of Shepard’s instatement as a Council Spectre: told what a credit he was to his entire species. “Except somewhere along the way you forgot about ‘your entire species.’ You’ve saved more alien lives than you have human.”

“I don’t care what species they are,” Ben seethed, nose to the blue static wash of the force field. “Every life counts.” He looked deep into the Clone Shepard’s eyes, searching, thumb barely tracing the texture of the pistol’s grip. “But maybe a clone wouldn’t understand that.”

The clone blinked for only a moment before replacing Shepard’s palm print: the last biometric capable of distinguishing them.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, the Normandy needs its captain.” Clone Shepard turned his back to the trio, turning to give his progenitor one final, malicious smirk. “So… _I should go_.”

Ben blinked.

Then frowned.

Tilted his head to one side.

Quirked an eyebrow.

But just as he was about to open his mouth to speak, Brooks cut in, voice dripping with gleeful disdain:

“Farewell, Commander,” then, looking directly at Kaidan, “I guess this is where ‘legends’ go to die.”

Before the pair had even left the loading zone, the tram-way Shepard’s team was standing on was rocketed into an iridium vault. The glow of Liara’s omni-tool was the only light as the mammoth capsule was lifted up and settled into place, deep in the darkest recesses of the Citadel.

As the mechanical arm lifted away, the inside of the vault became a haunting silence, still but for the eerie sound of the three breathing in the darkness…

“Clearly, one of our finest moments, right there.” Kaidan leaned against the vault wall and ran both hands through his hair.

Shepard squinted down at his boots.

“He said: ‘I should go,’” thickly affecting the phrase, “Do I sound like that?”

“Oh yeah.” Kaidan nodded firmly. “Big time.”

Liara looked back and forth between the two Spectres.

“Maybe we should be worrying about the impregnable vault we’ve been sealed inside forever…”

“How come nobody told me this before?” Shepard whirled around eyeing the two of them incredulously. “I’m open to feedback here!”

“You seemed so attached to it. Why ruin a good thing?” Kaidan squinted at a nearby data-pad.

“I doubt there’s much air in here, either,” Liara had begun scanning the seals of the vault desperately, “An hour at most.”

Shepard traced his jawline with a finger, scowling still at his boots.

“Maybe it’s: ‘I should _go_. I _should_ go. **I** should _go_ …’” He idly rubbed one hand over his greaves—hard-coding. “Or sometimes ‘I’ll talk to you later.’ Because you know what? I never do. Leave them wanting more.”

“Shepard,” Liara pivoted, eyes squeezed shut in frustration, “Why aren’t you more worried about this?”

“Hm?” Shepard looked up, wide-eyed and expressionless, “Oh. Glyph, you still out there?”

The polite, synthesized voice sounded over the comms:

_“Yes, Commander.”_

Liara rolled her eyes and thudded her head against the inside of the vault.

“Unlock this damned thing and go find the others. No one steals my ship. Not even me.”

_“Certainly, Commander. Beginning decryption protocol…”_

“Glyph,” Liara mumbled under her breath, “Of course. Stupid of me to… just… stupid.”

“It’s okay, Liara,” Kaidan lit his own omni-tool, a thin smile playing across his face. “Just the stress, probably. You would’ve remembered your little helper drone any second, I just know it.”

“ _Sarcasm_ will certainly not lift my spirits!” she said, tight-lipped.

Shepard narrowed his eyes. “It puts people at ease, though, doesn’t it? Let’s them know you’re leaving them to do something important—“

“Shepard, _please_!” Liara snapped.

The three stood in silence for a moment, the blooping sounds of Glyph’s decryption program sounding faintly through the walls.

“So,” Kaidan said carefully, “…anyone ever been sealed in an ancient trap before? Liara…?”

Ben bit his lip and Liara groaned.

“Watch your _step_ , Kaidan. Wouldn’t want you tripping over any priceless artifacts.”

“Long as neither of us shut down the most exclusive restaurant on the Citadel…”

They both turned, half-smiling, to Shepard.

“’I should get going… I should _be_ going… I _need to get_ going…’”

“Ben,” Kaidan spoke directly into Shepard’s ear, taking hold of his shoulders, “Come off it for now, okay? We’ll… uh, we’ll figure you out a new sign-off once we get out of here.”

Shepard looked up at him, a mix of emotions playing behind his eyes.

“I guess I thought it just sounded more natural than that.”

“Wait, is this really worrying you, Shepard?” Kaidan squinted at him through the dim haze. Liara chose that moment to begin exploring the length of the archive, and walked to the other side of the vault to analyze a piece of volus sculpture that had been contained with them. Shepard followed her with his eyes and spoke quietly.

“Just an observation…”

“We’ll get them, don’t worry,” Kaidan said soberly. “There’s no way that son-of-a-bitch is leaving this station wearing your face.”

“No way in hell.”

“Glyph,” Kaidan cracked a smile, “Raise the commander’s morale.”

_“According to polls on the extranet,”_ the VI responded, _“Commander Shepard is rated as the 51 st most attractive Council Spectre.”_

“There! See!” Kaidan guffawed, “There’s probably… hundreds… of Spectres. Honestly.”

“Thank you, Glyph.” Shepard rolled his eyes.

_“I will continue to search for relevant data to bolster your self-image, Commander.”_

“Mhm,” Shepard’s brow furrowed, no longer listening. “The clone’s a lot like me, isn’t he?

“No! What? No.”

“He watches people, like I do. Takes his cues from what he sees…” he ran his fingertips over the surface of a crate. “Am I that obvious?”

_“Commander,”_ Glyph’s voice came over the comms, _“The decryption is taking longer than intended.”_

“It’s fine, Glyph. Move as quick as you can.”

_“Also, ‘Commander Shepard’ was reference in 37890 university applications last year.”_

“Wait, Shepard,” Kaidan gripped Shepard’s shoulder when the commander shook his head and activated his omni-tool. “This thing… this guy… he’s _not_ you.”

“Hopefully he’s enough like me,” Shepard cleared his throat, jaw setting into an attempt at a grim smile.

“Brooks has probably had him studying vids of you for months,” Kaidan nodded.

“Doesn’t matter,” Shepard idly recalibrated the amplifier on his pistol, “If he’s like me, he’s going to pay a lot more attention to the actual source. To me. I had my chance to make an impression: he thinks I’ve got a cult of personality, he’s looking to know how I interact when the cameras are off. If he thinks I’m a violent asshole, it might just tip Traynor off that something’s not right. Stall him long enough for us to catch up.”

_“’Shepard’ is now the 18 th most common name of alien origin on Dekuuna. Up from 22nd last solar year.”_

“So…” Kaidan smirked, “All those threats? I dunno, they sounded pretty genuine, Ben. Last time we were talking about Kai Leng…”

Ben blinked heavily, his forehead crinkling just a bit when he looked back into Kaidan’s eyes.

“I saw how much that got to you,” Shepard said softly. “That’s how I knew what to say. Seems like Brooks taught him to be an egotistical, ass-hole already. I just fed into the image he wanted to play already.”

“That’s… very tactical, Shepard,” Liara said, looking up from the sculpture she’d been pretending to look at for the past several minutes. “I don’t know that I’d be able to think so quickly, confronted with a clone of myself.”

“Couldn’t see through Brooks, though,” Shepard shook his head. “What was that bit she had for you, Kaidan? ‘This is where legends go to die?’”

It was Kaidan’s turn to scowl.

“A book I was reading waiting for her before the casino last night. I should have _known_ something was off. She’s the brains of the operation, I could’ve put a stop to all of it right then.” He ground his teeth together, “Right between the eyes…”

“The clone is a pawn,” Liara said, stepping in, “It’s Brooks’ plan and Brooks’ ambition. He’s just a tool.”

“Maybe,” Shepard murmured. “Maybe at first. But now the other me wants it too. I don’t know if it’s because it’s the only thing he’s been allowed to want or what. But he doesn’t just want what I have, he wants to _be_ me. He wants everything…” Shepard’s eyes narrowed, “ _Except_ my vacation.”

_“The most popular cartoon program for children under 10 years of age on Earth is ‘Commeownder Shepawed: First Feline Spectre—‘”_

_“—_ That’ll be enough, Glyph,” Kaidan interjected.

“The Normandy’s in the middle of a retrofit,” Liara brushed the back of her hand across her brow. “If he takes it now, it won’t even be ready to fight the Reapers.”

“…yes. That too.” Shepard gave Kaidan a sidelong glance.

_“Dr. T’soni_ ,” Glyph chimed in again, _“I require a signal from inside the vault to complete the decryption profile. This will allow me to trigger the emergency unlock protocols.”_

“Coming, Glyph,” Liara walked towards the far end of the vault with her omni-tool, calling back over her shoulder, “You’re finally learning to relax, Shepard; let’s get you out of here.”

“That’s funny, coming from you!” Ben shot back.

Liara’s laughter and the glow of her omni-tool receded to the far end of the vault, and neither Ben nor Kaidan lit their own.

“You’re thinking something,” Kaidan said gently. “I can tell.” It took Shepard a moment to answer.

“Is he ‘like me,’ you think?” Shepard’s brow crinkled, giving Kaidan an uncertain look.

“What do you mean?”

“What I said before. Does he sit back and watch the world go by?” Ben looked away. “Change his face for whoever he’s talking to? Or does he have his own passions, his own ambitions—trying to be the hero, trying to steal the Normandy… he’s already got more ambition than I do.”

“…what do you mean?”

“I don’t have that. I go where I’m told and I do what needs to be done. I always have. I thought it was genetic, but… does this _other_ me…”

Kaidan stepped forward, so close his chest plate bumped Shepard’s.

“He’s not worth the worry, Shepard.”

“I was worried about shore leave,” Shepard said carefully, “I’m excited, too—I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted to have time to see what it was like to be a real couple…”

“Without the war breathing down our necks,” Kaidan gave him a soft smile, “Yeah.”

“Not just that. I don’t know what I’m doing, Kaidan. I know what a good… _boyfriend_ is supposed to do. Makes me regret the way I am… I can be decisive, but I can only react. There’s no ‘me,’ Kaidan. The plans you had for after the war, the way you look at your future: I don’t have that. Hell, even this whole relationship was your idea—an idea I love, I _need_ —but I’m already just… an echo.”

Kaidan stopped him then, taking his face between his palms. The cargo container lurched into motion as Glyph finished the decryption, and Shepard braced himself by taking hold of Kaidan’s waist. When their eyes met, Kaidan shook his head slowly, deadly serious.

“Never doubt yourself, Ben. I never do.”

Ben nodded, the thinnest smile spreading across his face.

“I wonder if the other me could show you a better time.”

Kaidan guffawed.

“I feel like a vat-grown you, raised by _Brooks,_ knows less about romance than either of us.”

++

The shuttle bay was a mess from all the retrofit and repair teams tearing up the floors, loading cargo, and rewiring. By the end of the day, it would also be full of bullet holes and stained with blood.

It had been an intense battle already: Shepard had spent the first minutes of their encounter hurling biotic bolts around the room, pulling the mercenaries out of cover and executing them with a detached precision. His face was a scornful mask, and for a moment, it seemed the clone was more interested in observing the ‘real Shepard’ than in fighting him.

Crouching behind cover, watching the way Shepard used his biotics and his gun, when Shepard chose to take cover or run. Soaking in the man’s tactics: the way he shied away from his shotgun and only used his biotic nova when taken by surprise by a cloaked enemy from behind. The cautious way he behaved. His reluctance to take direct action.

The clone grinned, cocked his shotgun, stepped out from behind cover—

Like a bolt of lightning, Shepard streaked into him, piercing his shields and hurling him against a bulkhead. In two steps, Shepard was on the clone again, deadly silent when he raised his fist. The nova sent the clone flying—a last minute roll the only thing saving him from a shotgun blast to the face.

The feint was over, and soon the two Shepards were charging back and forth across the bay as blue comets of biotic energy, unable to connect with each other.  Kaidan had taken up position near the crate of medi-gel, unleashing hell whenever the clone came near to resupply, gathering up the packs that had scattered to the floor when Ben had appeared in a flash to rip a few out of the crate.

“EDI,” Kaidan shouted, gunning down a sniper moving on where Ben was pinned down reloading, “I can’t follow the fight with all the charges. We’ll leave the impostor to Shepard.”

“ _I_ can predict where the two will reappear,” she said, squatting down next to Kaidan’s position. She had been scowling—such as she was capable—since they had boarded the Normandy.

“Still, we’re going to clear up these mercs. The commander’s… focused. Let’s make sure he can focus.”

“Aye.”

“Have you seen Brooks?”

“She is trailing the clone and covering his flank.” EDI gunned down a sniper advancing on their position. “I believe I have accessed the mercenary team’s comms.”

_“Where is Dagger Squad?”_ It was Brooks’ voice over the comms, “ _We need reinforcements!”_

“That’s encouraging at least,” Kaidan said with a note of irony.

“They will require more than reinforcements.” EDI turned to Kaidan and he nodded. They both broke cover to catch up with Shepard.

At that moment, Shepard had emptied the clip of his pistol into the clone, used two bolts of a biotic pull to take out the remainder of his shield, and readied his shotgun. The clone caught him off guard with a nova, staggering Shepard backwards as he fled for a position Brooks held.

It was the first Brooks had shown herself the whole fight, supporting the clone’s retreat.

Ben’s eyes glowed blue, narrowed.

With a calculated arc, he hurled a flare.

There was a blue flash and the ship rocked, flaming supply crates swirling around the bay like flakes in a shaken snowglobe. Some newly arriving mercs were killed immediately, and Shepard had just enough time to see the hatred and shock on the clone’s face as Brooks injected him with stims and medi-gel with deft fingers, pulling him behind cover.

Ben made to give chase, but just then the Normandy pitched hard to starboard and he was flung into a nearby workbench. Behind cover, EDI and Kaidan joined him a moment later.

_“What the hell is going on up there?”_ the clone barked over the comms. “ _Get us out of the nebula and jump to FTL!”_

_“We can’t! A skycar keeps blocking our path.”_ Came the reply from the cockpit. Cortez and Joker had managed to get ahead of the Normandy, keeping it from accelerating to the necessary speeds. Plan B.

_“Then shoot it!”_

“Well, this is going well,” Kaidan panted, rolling his eyes,“They’re already repairing the ship, what’s one or two more major bulkheads?”

“I got carried away…” Shepard huffed, running his fingers through his hair. The icy expression fading from his face, leaving him the picture of supernatural calm he typically displayed on the field.

“I approve,” EDI added, “The shuttle bay can be repaired. I wish to reassume control of the Normandy.”

The three of them held tight as the ship bucked again to one side.

“Fooled him again, huh Shepard?” Kaidan said, managing to clasp Shepard on the shoulder.

“I needed enough time to watch his tactics and I didn’t want him learning mine,” Ben ran his thumb along the thermal clip on his pistol, “He might have my abilities, he might be fitter than I am. I need to press what advantages I have…”

“It’s okay, Shepard,” Kaidan shook his head, braced himself as the ship pitched up. “Just trying to lighten the mood a little bit.”

_“Dammit!”_ the clone shouted through the comms. _“Launch the shuttle and blow that thing out of the sky!”_

At least four quivering mercs bolted to be the one to get out of the way of the real Commander Shepard and take their chances piloting the shuttle. Three of them dropped in seconds when EDI gunned them down at the door of the shuttle.

“I’m going to stop that shuttle—“ Kaidan rose but was immediately pinned back down by suppressing fire. It was too late, and the pressure of the bay dropped when the shuttle launched into the open air. “Ooookay, nevermind.”

“Cortez and Joker will be fine,” Shepard winced as he stretched his hip. “EDI, any luck overriding their lock-out?”

“It is likely someone on the bridge would need to override the protocol.”

“We take out the clone, those mercs’ll give up easy,” Kaidan said.

“Stupid,” Ben shook his head, tried to stretch his aching knees, “If we hadn’t wasted so much time gearing up for the archive raid, he wouldn’t have gotten this far.”

“C’mon, Shepard!”

“Considering locking us away in the vault was the only actionable and correctly executed part of Brooks’ plan,” EDI chimed in, “It is unlikely the plan would’ve moved forward _until_ we arrived.”

“Dragged my feet getting onto Leviathan, dragged my feet getting on this clone business,” Shepard continued, “And now I’m going to wait another week—not to mention added time to repair the damage we’re doing here—before I can take the fight to Cerberus.” He looked up at Kaidan, the faintest hint of softness in his cold eyes, “Dragged my feet on too many things. Not again.”

“Then let’s finish it.” Kaidan’s barrier activated with a crackle of static, “Leave Brooks to me.”

Shepard nodded, turned to EDI.

“EDI, I understand what you must be feeling with these people shutting down your core systems and stealing the Normandy. But I need you to concentrate on the mercs while I take care of the other me.”

“It is curious to experience a desire for revenge,” EDI smiled slightly, “I understand.”

“I’m not after revenge,” Shepard rose to a squat, peeked out at the open cargo bay door, the high-rises of the ward rushing past. “Just want to get back to my vacation.”

The concussive pulse of a biotic shockwave tore through the cover and scattered Brooks and the clone.

“What’s wrong with you?” Brooks called out to the grimacing clone. “Do you _want_ this or not?”

“Shut up and let me fight!” he roared.

“I’m doing you a favor,” Shepard panted from behind cover, “Because you’re not _ready_ to win this war!”

“You’re ruining everything!” Brooks screamed, pivoting away from defending the clone’s rear when Kaidan overloaded her shields. “My plan was perfect!”

“You stole a ship undergoing retro-fit, as well as the identity of one of the most well-connected, beloved humans in the galaxy,” EDI intoned dryly over the comms.

“You betrayed us, Brooks,” Kaidan dashed forward, shedding her shotgun blast off his barrier, “You don’t get to walk away from that!”

The reave he flung at her almost buckled her, but she cloaked and dashed to cover.

“It was too easy,” she spat, “You were _so_ eager to help the bumbling rookie!”

Kaidan was on her in a moment with another overload. He raised his gun, but Brooks kicked his leg out from under him and scrabbled back.

“You’re just scars and Cerberus cybernetics—“ the clone threw his arms back, body turning to lightning. Before he could finish, Shepard pivoted into a blind charge.

The two met head-on with a crash.

The clone stumbled backwards out of the blast, wide eyed, and Shepard leapt after him weaponless. They tumbled backwards over the railing, rolling down the ramp towards the open air. Shepard and the clone each landed a few punches, but a sudden jostling as Cortez’s skycar reappeared caused them both to lurch over the edge, grabbing the slick metal and dangling above the city speeding by below.

“Look at you,” the clone stuttered, pawing at the edge to climb back up, “What makes you so damn special? Why you and not me?”

Brooks, Kaidan, and EDI sprinted for the open door. Brooks skidded to a halt, Kaidan and EDI dove down the ramp to grab Shepard—hauled him up.

Back on the solid deck, Ben immediately turned back offering the clone his hand. Kaidan’s grip tightened on Shepard’s other arm, holding him fast.

“Here, take my hand.”

The clone was looking past Shepard, up at Brooks, who backed away from the open cargo door. His eyes narrowed: coding new data.

“…and then?” he looked from Ben’s hand to his eyes.

“And then you live,” Shepard said simply.

The clone held onto the deck.

His fingers carefully took in the texture of metal plating.

“For what?”

He let go.

In his parody N7 armor, it was still Ben’s face the clone wore as he plummeted. Mouth open and eyes wide: a terror Ben’s face had never displayed before. The thrill of free fall and the realization of death.

He was gone.

Ben blinked.

Then bolted back for the shuttle bay, flinging a pull-field and catching Brooks as she tried to escape.

The pilot surrendered. EDI had control of the ship within a few moments, and Cortez and Joker had managed a mid-flight dock with the Normandy as it turned around to return to port. Kaidan and Shepard hunted down where Shepard’s shotgun had skidded to during the confrontation. Ben was limping heavily.

“You kicked ass out there, Ben,” Kaidan said, taking Shepard’s shoulders once they were out of sight behind a crate.

“Yeah,” Ben managed a placid smile, practically rehearsed.

“You’re hurt pretty bad, you gonna be okay?”

“I will,” Shepard gingerly canted his hips until he winced, “Ramming into another biotic charge… hurts. Not used to it. First time I crashed into Tela Vasir’s charge on Illium, I though my ribcage was going to come flying out of my chest.”

“He didn’t look like he was ready for it either,” Kaidan and Shepard eased to their knees to search under a raised platform.

“He wasn’t. I knew I needed to strengthen my barrier before trying something like that. Just needed to wait for the right moment. Get him riled up enough.”

“Riled up, huh? Well you definitely hit a nerve.”

“I knew which nerves to go for,” Shepard chuckled ruefully.

“Here we go,” Kaidan reached way back between two crates and drew out Shepard’s shotgun. It was pocked, burned and the grip was ever so slightly bent. He handed it to Shepard, “This has seen better days, huh?”

“It’s what I’ve got.” Shepard frowned down at the weapon before slinging it back into place on his back.

By the time he got to Brooks, she was cuffed and looking smug.

“I’ll be more than happy to cooperate with authorities,” she rolled her shoulders with a feral grin, wrists bound behind her back.

“Maya,” Shepard shook his head. “I know that voice.”

“Do you _really_?”

“You’re getting a chance to redeem yourself. Don’t waste it.” There was a thick warning in Shepard’s tone.

“So serious,” she leaned in close, furtive, “Admit it: some part of you liked having me around. Looking up to the legend?”

Ben looked genuinely puzzled, but turned and began to walk away. Brooks hastened to continue:

“We had some laughs. And who knows? Maybe we’ll have some more one day…”

“No,” Shepard turned, scowling, “We won’t. Because you’re gonna stay in your cell and do your time.”

“Afraid I’ll escape,” her voice cut, “come back for revenge? Is the Great Commander Shepard _pleading_ for his life?”

The anger fell from Ben’s face, and he leaned his face close to Brooks’.

“I’m pleading for yours.”

Brooks blinked, couldn’t hold eye contact.

“So thoughtful…” she managed with her last shred of scorn. “Then I suppose I’m off to lock-up.” As Cortez ushered her to the lift, she turned, “You know, _he_ wouldn’t have let me live.”

“You can’t clone everything,” Shepard answered simply.

She went quietly, not looking back out at Shepard as the lift doors closed.

“I really wish we would’ve shot her,” Kaidan supplied, at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Follows after this one, a brief interlude for Kaidan and Shepard to debrief the clone business.


	28. The Difference between Paragon and Renegade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard and Kaidan are recuperating after the incident with Shepard's clone, and Ben has been having some thoughts about the matter.

> _Spectre Alenko,_
> 
> _I understand that three hours ago, the Normandy re-docked after making an unscheduled flight out over Kithoi Ward, causing damage to several high-rise industrial complexes before returning to dry-dock to resume scheduled retrofit and restock._
> 
> _I have undertaken to oversee this investigation personally—I hope you will not be offended that I personally requested the assignment—and upon interviewing several dock workers and the C-Sec officers responding, I have learned of your foiling the plot of a Cerberus clone of Commander Shepard._
> 
> _I have recovered the body of said clone, and after some analysis, I have found several key indications that this corpse—while DNA is identical to that of Shepard’s on file—has the markers of a rather good clone. With these indicators, I am now capable of distinguishing between genuine natural DNA and Cerberus manufactured genetic material. Another investigator might have missed it._
> 
> _I have retained the corpse at my laboratory near Bachjret Point as evidence for the Council—should any be required—and await Shepard’s instructions on how to dispose of the body. What’s more, having secured the Citadel archives, I believe I can reverse the record alteration to Shepard’s biometric data: the work was elegantly done, but hastily performed. Had I not known about the change, I might not have seen the seams. I will let Shepard know if he should have to come in personally to re-record biometrics._
> 
> _Please excuse that I attended to the clone first: newly dead tissue and all that. Science. You understand._
> 
> _All this to say: get some rest, your friends in Special Tactics have your back on this one._
> 
> _-Spectre Col Vedirus_
> 
> _P.S. While news of a Shepard Clone will be tightly controlled, as you are aware, such rumors are nearly uncontainable. I have no doubt that some of the more high-quality Alenko/Shepard authors will have produced erotic work on this subject within the day, should you wish to take a look at the extranet later. Could help lighten the mood?_

“Ugh.” Kaidan groaned down at his omni-tool display, letting his chop-sticks rattle into his third empty bowl. No sooner had his eyes reached the end of the letter than it auto-deleted.

He blinked, tried to recall the message, searched for it in both the data-buffer and the log: nothing. At last, he gave up shook his head.

He and Shepard sat on stools at the noodle bar down an alley a few blocks down from Tiberius Towers, both still fully dressed in armor.

“Bad news?” Shepard put his bowl to his bottom lip as he slurped at his noodles.

“Good news, I guess. A friend I made today… yesterday…? He’s a Spectre. Wrote me to let me know he’s taking care of the clean-up with this whole… clone business. He’s taking care of the biometrics and he’s got the corpse on ice.” He looked warily over at Shepard, hunched down onto the counter and yawning. “There’s some other stuff too, but let’s talk about it later, huh?” Kaidan’s tired eyes then fell on Shepard’s bowl “How are those… meat noodle things?”

“They’re food.” Shepard shrugged, offering the bowl to Kaidan who twisted a few noodles around his chop sticks. He chewed for a long time.

“Huh. Tastes like mee krob, I guess?”

“Don’t know what that is. But if mee krob tastes like the small intestines of some palaven spider…”

“High in protein though.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.” Kaidan’s blink kept his eyes closed double-long.

“Uh huh.” Shepard fixed the counter in a languid stare.

“Shepard, you look as exhausted as I feel. I think we need to get to bed.”

“I like the way you think, Kaidan,” Shepard managed a grin as he ran a hand through his hair. “Let’s go.”

“I’ll meet you there, I need to head back to C-Sec and grab my duffel.”

“Like hell you do. Get that in the morning, huh?” Shepard boxed him on the shoulder, perhaps slightly harder than a playful jab should have been.

“Well, if you insist, Shepard.” Kaidan suppressed a yawn, “You always were a stubborn one.”

Back at Shepard’s apartment, the two fumbled to remove their armor: bits lay strewn all around the floor of the bedroom. Kaidan hopped on one foot as he struggled to remove his left greave, finally loosening it and straightening his back with a groan in the doorway of the bathroom.

This left him once again staring at the hot tub. He paused, transfixed.

“…How’s your hip doing, Ben?” He said, eyes still fixed on the churning water. “You were charging that clone a lot.”

“It hurts. I think I need some sleep.” His chest plate rattled to the floor. “You thinking about using that tub tonight?”

“I think if I get in that tub, I’m gonna fall asleep and drown.” He rubbed at his eyes, mumbled under his breath: “It’d be a pretty great way to go, though.”

Shepard removed the last of his armor and, now in nothing but his underwear, sighed with relief and stepped up behind Kaidan, pressing his chest into Kaidan’s bare back.

“I guess we can officially declare shore leave begun, huh?” He rested his hands on Kaidan’s waist and nibbled on Kaidan’s neck until his ministrations were interrupted by a cavernous yawn. Kaidan turned with a weary smile, pulling Shepard’s head onto his shoulder, guiding him over to the bed.

“Shepard, sex sounds great, but I’ve been awake for 72 hours and I’m pretty sure I’d be no good at it right now.” He gently pushed Shepard onto the mattress with a yawn.

“I know.” Shepard said in a deadpan, “Seems like we’re making up for lost time again.” His head fell into the pillow with a thump, he winced from his hip upward.

“Whoa, that turned serious.” Kaidan threw aside the covers and slid in next to Shepard, his omni-tool activating for an moment to slide the door shut and turn off the lights. The residual glow from the bathtub took a moment to fade, leaving the couple in darkness. “Just a couple hours to make up this time, huh? Not two years.”

“Sorry. That sounded less bitter in my head.” Shepard groped in the darkness to pull the sheet over his legs.

“…wow, it’s dark in here. Been a long time since I slept in a room this dark…”

“I’m afraid I’m going to get used to this bed,” Shepard mumbled, scooting up to Kaidan in the darkness and nuzzling into his neck, hand on his chest, “And the company.”

“Get used to it, Shepard.” Kaidan slipped his arm around Shepard, “You’re not getting rid of me,” he said, laying a soft kiss to Shepard’s brow.

“Don’t want to,” Shepard murmured.

The soft churn of the hot tub was quieter than the sound of the two men’s breath, the bed linens warmed with their body heat, and the rise and fall of their chests came at long, even intervals.

“…So… are you okay?” Kaidan whispered, rubbing Ben’s shoulder. “Wanna talk about the clone… or?”

“No. Not at all.”

“You had some thoughts back in the vault…”

“I got over that there.” Shepard cleared his throat and tried to settle back into Kaidan’s chest. “Thank you for listening to me then,”

“Huh, really? Kinda surprising.” Kaidan’s brow furrowed unseen.

“Why is that so surprising?”

“You just found out that Cerberus made a genetic copy of you that some rogue agent stole and trained to replace you. Even by your standards, Shepard, that’s a pretty heavy day.”

“Just another day,” Shepard tangled their legs together.

“Hey,” Kaidan cupped Shepard’s chin, “Are you really okay with this? I don’t want you to do this ‘unbreakable Commander’ thing with me, Ben. If you’re really okay, I’ll drop it.”

“Kaidan—“

“No. Don’t ‘Kaidan’ me, Shepard.”

Shepard let out a long sigh, shifting his hip again. A shiver ran through his body.

“Like you said, I’m tired… I don’t want to think about it,” Shepard drew his knee up under Kaidan’s legs.  “What do _you_ think about it?” he huffed. “Let’s have it.”

“…He struck a nerve. I’ve never seen you as angry as you were in that shuttle bay. Except for the night after Thessia.”

“An act. I told you.”

“Maybe,” Kaidan breathed, “But… I know you a little better than that. Wasn’t all an act.”

“It was a long day. You were the same. When we got Brooks hauled off you said you wish we would’ve shot her.” He eased himself away from Kaidan’s chest, but Kaidan held him fast.

“She tried murdering my boyfriend! Damn right I was ready to kill her.”

“It’s the same for me and the clone, then,” he muttered. “Hearing him talk about Virmire…”

“The Virmire thing? Pah! That wasn’t even an insult, and you know it. He didn’t know what he was talking about. That’s not why you were pissed: like you said in the vault, he tried stealing your life, Shepard. It’s okay to be angry at that. I’d be mad as hell.” He drew his arms tighter around Shepard’s shoulders.

Shepards sharp breath against his skin stopped Kaidan up short.

“No, not just my life,” his tone was coldly hushed, “My future. We may have looked the same, but we didn’t have the same past. I could’ve afforded to lose that: my past. Plenty of my history I’d rather erase than face, these days. But this is the first time in my life I’ve ever… looked forward to the future. This shore leave… it’s the start of that.” He stroked a hand down Kaidan’s chest, “Yeah. That made me mad as hell.”

“How come you tried to save him?” Kaidan asked in a hush.

“He stole my ship, he tried to kill my friends, my crew. You.” Shepard huffed another warm breath against Kaidan’s skin. “But he was still a person. He wasn’t just a botched me... he was his own man, whether he wanted to be or not. After Akuze, after all the death I’ve seen, I still have got to help anyone I can. It was the right thing to do.”

“I…” Kaidan shrugged, shook his head. He whispered: “I dunno.”

“You said the jab about Virmire didn’t bother you because he didn’t know what he was talking about. And you’re right. He was supposed to be thrown away. An organ farm, if I even needed it.”

“That’s Cerberus,” Kaidan huffed.

“It’s irresponsible. How can you create a life and not take responsibility for it?” The words were hushed. “And Brooks: she didn’t want to take responsibility either, in the end. I don’t know how you can do that.”

“That’s part of what I love about you,” Kaidan whispered, just as hushed, pressing his lips into Ben’s hair.

“…the last time you told me that…”

“After your little stunt with Leviathan.”

“Leviathan,” Shepard sighed, “That’s the same, isn’t it?”

“Hm?”

“Creators not taking responsibility for their creations. Parent’s not taking responsibility for their children.”

Shepard nosed up the nape of Kaidan’s neck, sighing against the stubble beneath his jaw. Kaidan shushed him quietly, stroked his hair.

“That’s a lot to think about, Ben.”

“He had no one. I had no one. I didn’t mind, and I don’t think he minded either… until the end. I told him he didn’t have what it took to win the war, but the more I think about it, that’s not an insult. He was more human than me, in the end.”

“What’re you saying, Ben?” Kaidan’s fingers dug into Shepard’s back, pressing him down into himself.

“I made a mistake. I said ‘Take my hand and you live,’ but that wasn’t enough. My whole life has been about survival. He was, what? Six months old? And already he knew he needed something more than that. He felt like his life would be meaningless without—“

“No, stop, Ben.” Kaidan all but shook him, “Brooks… she betrayed him. That’s what she’s good at. But the clone? Don’t forget, I was there too. You don’t know what he meant before he let go. He might’ve felt like it wasn’t worth living if he couldn’t be the hero, or couldn’t stand that he had been bested by the original. Anything, Shepard. Cerberus? Brooks? That clone—that _man’s_ —blood is on their hands. Not on yours.”

“Until I offered to save him, and didn’t.”

“Didn’t want saving.”

“…everyone wants saving.” Shepard’s voice was small, muffled into Kaidan’s shoulder. “And I need to be able to figure out how.”

“Hell, Shepard,” Kaidan began to stir, but was stalled by a cavernous yawn. Shepard managed a chuckle and kissed along Kaidan’s neck to soothe him before he could respond.

“And if I’m being honest, it was a tactical decision too. He was well trained, he didn’t have any of my aches and pains…”

“Hey now,” Kaidan struggled to pull his body up under Shepard’s body weight, but Ben had become like a dead weight wrapped around his body, clinging tight. “Don’t let your mind go down that path, Shepard.”

“Much as it hurts, the pain—in my hip, in my back—reminded me that I was human after all. Not some Cerberus robot or… or…”

“A clone?”

“Yeah. At least I know I’m me. But with all the Cerberus tech inside me, I guess…”

“Hmm?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Really? You’re gonna clam up now?” Kaidan lightly pinched where his arms were slung around Shepard’s shoulders, “Come on, Ben. Let me be there for you.”

“I don’t know what I’m trying to say.” Shepard rolled onto his back beside Kaidan, “Sometimes it’s easy to believe that Cerberus… didn’t bring back all of me.” He rolled to the far side of the bed. Kaidan scooted up behind him, fitting himself to Shepard’s form and whispering into his ear.

“They brought back everything I love. Everything I need. And more than enough to save the universe.” Kaidan yawned into Shepard’s shoulder before clearing his throat gently, “And when you’re doubting yourself, it’s pretty easy to believe you’re not the same person you used to be. My first years in the service, working my ass off, never getting promoted, watching people with lower marks than me get invitations to do Special Ops training… all because of my headaches? My implant? On Omega, on Thessia: I beat the prejudice and made a life for myself. I was a soldier, but I thought I’d gone soft.” He chuckled “You don’t care about this. What I’m saying is—“

A digital voice suddenly rang out in the darkness: ‘New Messages’ followed by a metallic ping. They waited in silence a moment, but the announcement and the ping repeated every few seconds.

Shepard cussed.

“I am turning off that notification sound.”

 “If you gimme a minute I can probably hack it,” Kaidan smiled, squinting at the sudden orange bloom as he activated his omni-tool.

“No, you rest. I’m going to go get it.” Shepard threw off the covers, and a warm light like dawn lit the room when his feet met the floor. Bare chested, he shivered as he descended the stairs, beckoned to the back office by the pinging message console.

He tapped the screen and the pinging abruptly stopped. It took navigating a few option menus until he found a way to disable the constant message alert. There was no option to silence the machine entirely, and Shepard muttered, the best that could be done was to set it to “Notify Once on Entry.”

Flipping back to the message inbox, he yawned down at several new messages from the crew, all asking for a little of his time—to meet him on the strip, or to see his new apartment. Just as he was about to close the console, a new message appeared at the top of his inbox: from Kaidan.

 

> _You know what you need, Shepard? You need a night where you get to just hang out and try to be normal for a few hours. Let’s get something to eat. After that, we can head down to the strip or whatever you want. Let me know._

Shepard grinned and rolled his eyes, flicking off the lights on his way out of the office. Passing by the waterfall in the hallway in the dark made him shiver again, and by the time he reached the dusky bedroom he had taken to rubbing his arms and chest.

Kaidan lay on his side of the bed, limbs spread out in an ‘X’, the covers pushed down around his waist, hand idly rubbing where Shepard had left the bed. He turned his head as Shepard walked in, and his tired brow furrowed seeing Shepard’s shiver.

“Get in here,” He said affectionately, holding the covers up for Shepard to dart between the sheets. Kaidan wrapped his body around Shepard’s and rubbed his chest while the light slowly faded to near total darkness again.

 “Thanks for the message.” Shepard smiled, letting his head relax into Kaidan’s shoulder. ”That was pretty cute.”

“Figured if I wanted to spend some time with you, I better make sure I get my appointment in early.”

“Good idea. I thought you were exaggerating about every member of the crew wanting to meet up.”

“Long as you’re not asking any of them into your bed, I’ll try to contain my jealousy.”

“Nah, I didn’t think you were big on three-ways anyway.” Shepard joked.

Kaidan’s eyes shot open, “Oh, I’m sure the slash authors would love that.”

“…what?”

“Something… this other Spectre I met? Col Vedirus. He…” Kaidan bit his lip in the dark. “Y’know what? It seemed really important before, now it doesn’t seem important at all. I’ll tell you later.”

“If I weren’t so tired, I wouldn’t let you get away with that.” Shepard’s voice was becoming little more than a murmur. He pressed himself into Kaidan’s body as another shiver bristled across his skin.

“Still cold?”

“Yeah. Getting warmer. I’ve been feeling… colder lately. All the time.”

“Since Despoina?”

“Uh huh.”

Kaidan shifted and propped himself up until Shepard groaned and pulled him back into the pillow, settling his face back on Kaidan’s chest. “Still having nightmares? Hearing voices?” Kaidan asked with concern.

“No. Not nightmares about Leviathan anyway.”

“What, then?”

“…I’m in this forest, everything’s gray. I can hear these whispering voice—not like Leviathan’s voice—but… people I’ve known. People I lost. There’s shapes in the woods, it’s like there’s people that are there, but not there. And…”

“...What else?”

“There’s this boy I saw in a blown-out building in Vancouver. I saw him getting onto an evac shuttle as we were lifting off. It didn’t make it.”

“And he’s in the dream, huh?”

“Yeah. He’s the only real thing in the woods. He’s running away from me. I can’t catch him.”

Kaidan soothed a hand down Shepard’s side “Thank you for telling me, Ben. How often do you have these dreams?”

“Pretty often. You might have noticed I don’t sleep very much.”

“Or very long when you do. Is that why?”

“No. Not entirely anyway. There’s always more I could be doing, something to double-check. I force myself to sleep to make sure I’m ready for the next drop. But when I do sleep… yeah.”

“We’ve got at least a week here, Ben. Nothing’s going to wake you up. I’m gonna make sure you get your rest, alright?”

“Yeah,” Ben smirked. “Alright.”

“I guess I already promised I’d be back here every night, that way I can make sure you’re getting to bed like a normal person.”

“I think a ‘normal person’ would have ways of keeping himself awake on vacation.” Shepard grinned as he trailed his hand down between Kaidan’s legs beneath the sheets.

“Well then, I guess I’ll have to make sure you sleep in.” Kaidan laughed, tilted Shepard’s face into a kiss. “Long as no one wants to meet you for breakfast.”

 “It is James’ favorite meal of the day.”

“He’s already scheduled a visit?”

“Yeah, says he wants to get my opinion on something.”

“I guess I should warn him you have a thing for your lieutenants.” Kaidan pressed his smirk into Shepard’s mouth for a kiss.

“That’s…” Shepard huffed a laugh. “That’s a low blow, Kaidan.”

“Hmm. Sorry.” Kaidan managed a chuckle, squeezed Shepard, “Just proving you don’t need cybernetic implants to feel old and worn out. Guess I’ve been feeling that way too, lately; seeing James bluster around all cocky… let’s say it doesn’t help. He’s a hell of a soldier though.”

“Hmm, yeah.” Shepard mumbled drowsily, trying to kiss a line up Kaidan’s graying sideburns in the dark.

“Alright, tell me: is he your thing?”

Shepard groaned.

“This is a trap, right?”

“No way. You’re flesh and blood. He’s hunky, big muscles, nice tan. Also, I’ve met Samara. I’m willing to admit she totally turned my head when we met her at the monastery. Don’t tell me you never gave Vega a look over. You had plenty of time on the Normandy before we started going out.”

“I pretty much stopped looking at guys after I was arrested.” Shepard shifted up on an elbow and rolled over so he lay on top of Kaidan. “Tell you the truth, with all the time I had to check him out on Earth and on the Normandy, you still turned my head more whenever I saw you with Anderson, or standing against that window in the Observation Lounge.”

“D’aw! Silver-tongued Shepard.” He pulled Shepard into a kiss.

“Mm, so remember _that_ the next time some cocky lieutenant’s making you feel like an old man.”

“Heh, noted. Guess we’re both a little afraid we’re losing a step or two tonight, huh?”

“A thirty-something biotic with premature gray and a reanimated corpse. Quite the pair.”

“There’s no one else I’d rather be with.” Kaidan rolled to the left so he and Shepard were again on their sides, face to face. “…you know James worships you, right?”

Ben scoffed.

“He does, Shepard. You intimidate the hell out of him, but he respects you”

“Wish I knew what I was supposed to do for him.” Shepard repositioned his hip.

“Just talk. That’s been enough for everyone else.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Sure, Shepard. Look at us: Tali went from being on her pilgrimage to being an Admiral of the Quarian Fleet, Liara went from bookworm to info broker, Garrus went from disgruntled C-Sec to disgruntled adviser to the Primarch.” He ruffled Shepard’s hair, “And after years of being passed over, I serve aboard the Normandy with you for a couple months and get all my promotions in three years!”

“And all I had to do was die.” Shepard grumbled, shaking Kaidan’s hand off his head before yawning. “I really don’t think I’m different than any other soldier.”

“But you are, Ben.”

“I just do what any soldier would do. Same training as everyone else. It’s just good training.”

“No, it’s not just that. You’re a good man, Ben. People look at you and they believe in _themselves_. That’s something we don’t really have a lot of, these days. It doesn’t matter how you see yourself, Shepard, because sometimes people see things in you that you can’t see for yourself. I know I’m not going to convince you of that tonight when we’re both exhausted and we just beat your clone and everything, but promise me you’ll at least think about what I’m saying?”

“Okay…”

“Good,” Kaidan cut in, “Meantime, just concentrate on sleeping in. You get to be normal this week.”

“Mm. If this is what it’s like to be ‘normal,’ I think I’d like to extend the vacation.”

“Yeah,” he laughed and squeezed Shepard’s shoulder “me too. Might not be too likely for us though, huh?”

“You think so? I’ve been wondering lately… about after this war.”

“Whether you’re saving the galaxy with a shotgun in your hand, directing platoons from behind a desk, or gardening as a civilian back on Earth, you, Ben Shepard, are a hero who is always going to change the lives of the people around him for the better.”

“…thanks, Kaidan.”

“When Wrex and I were flying to pick up my tux…” Kaidan drifted off into thought for a moment before continuing “Uh… he was saying something like that about you. About how you didn’t know how not to help people. Doesn’t matter where you end up.”

“Hm. That’s almost funny,” he yawned, “coming from Wrex.”

“Shepard… I’m glad we get this time, for us. There’s… well there’s a lot I need to think about. A lot I wanna say.”

“Mm. You should say it.” Shepard kissed the nape of Kaidan’s neck and propped himself up, nose to nose with Kaidan.

Kaidan tilted his chin and met Shepard’s lips with his own, a sad and needy kiss, before settling Shepard’s head back into his chest. “Nah. Sometime when we’re both a little less tired, I think.”

“Okay, Kaidan.” They lay in silence for a long time when Shepard spoke again “Is it about what you and Wrex talked about?”

“Maybe a little. Go to sleep, Ben. I promise, the next couple days are gonna be great. You earned a good night’s sleep.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:  
> Shepard meets Jack in the Armax Arsenal Arena.


	29. The Difference between a Dark Side and a Soft Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shore leave on the Citadel: fighting! Dancing! Drinking! The Psychotic Biotic!

Shepard didn’t stray too far down the Silversun Strip on any given day: the Armax Arena, arcade, and casino were all within a block of the Tiberius Towers. When he wasn’t pitting himself against holographic enemies, teenagers with too many credits, claw-machines, and ‘dumb luck,’ he mostly sat and watched the people on the strip: catching whatever thing trickles of the war he could get.

And there were plenty of people talking about right on his block. Besides, just about everyone who was vying for his attention wanted to meet him close to home anyway. It was no surprise, then, that Jack had requested to meet him at the Arena.

“Shepard, glad you could make it, I’ve got us all set up.”

“Hey Jack, what’re we up against?”

“Well, I was planning on going easy on your sorry ass till I saw you were already at the top of the leader board.” She cracked her knuckles, “We’re fighting Super Elites.”

“Let me guess: Cerberus?”

“Can’t get enough of killing those fuckers. They’re holographic, but they squirm like the real thing.”

Jack and Shepard made their way downstairs to the locker room below the spectator area at the Armax Arsenal Arena. Jack pulled out one of the standard issue rifles and slapped it down on the workbench while Shepard opened his locker to remove his clothes.

“Private locker, Shepard?” she snickered, “Damn, guess everyone just bends over for the savior of the galaxy.”

“The arena gave me a free pass. It’s a PR stunt, but it’s been fun. They didn’t give me a locker until I broke the score board.”

“No fucking way. _You_ broke the score board?”

“Damn right.” Shepard grinned as he slipped into his thermal layer.

“You’ve only been on shore leave for, like, three days. How’d you find the time to kick so much ass, the Arena’s always booked solid!”

“My matches don’t usually take long.”

“You cocky son-of-a-bitch!” Jack rolled her eyes and shoved a thermal clip in her rifle, hopping up to sit on the workbench to watch Shepard change. “You pretend to be a white knight, but I knew you were a killer under that pearly smile, spending your off-time killing shit.”

“Just because I’m not saving the galaxy at this exact moment, doesn’t mean I don’t want to stay sharp.” Shepard fitted his armor plates with practiced finger. “Besides, I’m good at killing shit.”

“You need to get laid, Shepard. Find someone special to keep you warm instead of spending all your time in the arena.”

“What makes you think he hasn’t been coming to the arena with me?”

“’He’? Huh. Wish I would’ve known that before I wasted all that time trying to fuck you back on the Normandy.”

“Here I thought you were just being friendly.”

“Yeah, because I’m such a warm and cuddly person.” She rolled her eyes and leaned back against the wall “So who’s the lucky boytoy? Some gogo boy from Flux?”

“If you’re going to be crass, then I’m not telling you anything.” Shepard looked over his shoulder, a twinkle in his eye as he closed the seals on his chest-plate.

“Fuck you!” she threw a thermal clip that bounced off his armor and clattered to the floor, “Alright then, who is this ‘upstanding gentleman’ you’ve got?”

“Name’s Kaidan.”

“Wait, not that do-gooder Alliance drip from Horizon?” she groaned. “That fucker you asked to join the crew who couldn’t be fucking bothered to come?”

“Kaidan Alenko. Second Human Spectre.”

“Fuck that!”

“It’s true.”

“I always wondered why you got so pissy after we got off Horizon. I can’t believe you got back together with that asshole! You moped for weeks! I can’t believe you’d take him back. I woulda cut off his balls if he talked to me like that!”

“I didn’t mope after Horizon at all,” Shepard didn’t meet Jack’s eyes as he placed his worn-out shotgun on the bench next to Jack and began tightening the mods. “And I didn’t get ‘back together’ with him. We only started dating since I got the Normandy back.”

“So you guys were just fuck buddies before?”

“No, we’ve been friends since I became a Spectre.”

“Yeah, _sure_ Shepard.”

“Jack…” Shepard said in a playful warning tone.

She put her hands in the air and hopped off the bench. “Okay. Well he sounds like an asshole to me, Shepard. But I guess I should’ve figured high maintenance and goody-goody was right up your alley.”

“You’d like him Jack.” He switched on his inferno ammo, “I think he hates Ceberus almost as much as you do. That’s why he wouldn’t join us against the Collectors.”

“Yeah? What reason has he got to hate Cerberus?”

“Kaidan believes in doing the right thing. He sees things for what they are. I needed Cerberus’ resources to take down the Collector’s. Kaidan doesn’t compromise like that.”

“Hmmm, maybe me and loverboy could get along.” The two crossed into the lift as they descended into the arena, which flickered to life as they stepped out. “Tell you what Shepard, I’ve got the Arena reserved later this afternoon too, was planning on taking out some of my aggression solo, but why don’t you invite loverboy down and we’ll all have some fun?”

++

Later that afternoon, Jack and Shepard sat in the East Observation wing, looking down at the match that played beneath them.

“Rich assholes in their shiny armor.” She’d thrown a fit to discover that the Arena didn’t serve alcohol, so instead was sipping one of the fancy drinks from the juice bar. “I don’t know who they’re blowing to tone down the simulation, but those geth sure as shit aren’t fighting like real geth.”

“No, take a look: the third guy they brought in’s a Blue Suns merc. He’s supporting the other two, doing all the work with the sniper rifle, softening the Pyros up for the heavy-set one.”

Jack squinted down at the sniper in the corner.

“…oh yeah. Sure as shit. Good eye, Shepard.”

“What can I say?” He sipped at his water-bottle. “I’ve killed a lot of mercs.”

The door to the main atrium opened and Kaidan strode in, already wearing his armor. Shepard’s mouth twisted into a grin: a number of spectators’ turn their heads away from the lackluster match to get a look at the human Spectre walking past in full armor.

“Hey. There you are.” He leaned over and kissed Shepard on the mouth as Jack snorted across the table. “And you’re Jack, right? Great to finally meet you.” He held out his hand and Jack took it, her eyebrow raised.

“Coulda met me a couple months ago if you’d joined us on Horizon.” She scanned him up and down with her eyes.

“Umm… yeah, well.” He sat down, slipped some protein pouches out of his suit, “Thought you guys might want a little boost before you went back in there. One for each of us.” He distributed the pouches; Jack wrinkled her nose.

“I’ve always hated this shit.” She looked the pouch over and tossed it back to the table. “I’ll stick with some juice.”

“Suit yourself; I always get a better charge out of the protein supp than from the juice.” He and Shepard opened the packets and shook the contents until it steamed.

“Didn’t tell me loverboy was a biotic, Shepard.”

Shepard rolled his eyes.

“Well, now you know.”

“Should be a fun match with three biotics in the ring, eh?” Kaidan slurped some protein supp out of the silver pouch.

“Yeah, if you two boy scouts can get a shot off with me in there.” She stabbed at the bottom of her juice cup with the straw.

“Damn, you’re cocky.” Kaidan laughed.

“I earned it.”

“Sure, it’s just… interesting to watch.”

“I’ll show you something interesting to watch in the arena.”

Kaidan blinked.

“Do we wanna strategize or anything? I can handle the tech and warp fields, Jack… got a speciality?”

“Yeah, my speciality is ripping people apart. What’s yours?” She shot back.

“Umm… well, it sure as hell isn’t small talk?” Kaidan’s brow furrowed despite his joke.

Jack blinked for a moment before sputtering out a laugh.

“Sorry, loverboy. I’m just giving you a hard time.”

“Yeah, I got that much.” Kaidan’s frown held in place.

 “Figure I owe it to you squeaky clean Alliance types to get a rise. Ask Shepard. Show you what the real world’s like.”

Shepard rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead and Kaidan made a sour face before a look of realization dawned in his eyes. He chuckled.

“Alright, sounds good.”

“…you’re a weird one, loverboy.”

“You can call me Kaidan, if you want.”

“Good to know.” She maintained a tight-lipped smile.

Kaidan shifted oddly in his armor.

“So,” he cleared his throat. “You were working at the Grissom Institute, how’d you like that?”

“Made sure they’re getting better training than I got. Someone’s gotta teach these kids to fight. The Alliance always pussy-foots around biotics, and Kahlee knew it. They could barely throw a dog when I met ‘em, much less an armored Cerberus Centurion.”

“Throw a dog?” Shepard’s eyes got wide.

“It’s rewarding work,” Kaidan stepped in, “Teaching. Not… throwing pets. Per se.”

“Yeah? You can bet your ass it’s more than just ‘rewarding.’ Wish I’d had the same.”

“Me too.”

“Me too.” Shepard chipped in through a mouthful of protein supp. Jack had leaned onto the table, arms crossed as she continued her back and forth with Kaidan.

“You know, I’ve never asked, Shepard. What kind of training did you get in your biotics once you joined the service?”

“Not much, really. They didn’t have any formal biotics training when I joined up. They’d throw me in the pit once in a while with a DI who would yell at me to do things with my biotics. Had to figure it out for myself, mostly in N7 training.”

“Anything’s better than Cerberus.” Jack quipped.

“I’ll drink to that,” Kaidan held aloft his protein supp packet and commenced an awkward toast with Jack’s juice.

“Yeah, Shepard said you’ve got a chip on your shoulder about Cerberus.”

“That’s right,” Kaidan replied, fixing his eyes on Jack’s.

“If the Illusive Man showed up right now, at least we’d have a race to see who could kill him first.” Shepard remarked, watching the tense expressions on Kaidan and Jack’s faces.

“How come?” Jack said, ignoring Shepard’s interjection.

“Had to clean up a lot of their messes. Manufacturing husks three years ago, breeding and manipulating rachni, terrible experiments, deadly AIs, the death of Admiral Kohaku. The death of men, women, and children. On the Citadel. At Sanctuary.” He narrowed his eyes, “I’ve seen them burning in the streets. Piled up in heaps. And now I’ve seen Cerberus take good, honest people trying to protect their homes and made them do terrible things. Turned them into monsters. It’s me knowing that every Cerberus foot soldier I kill out there isn’t evil, but someone who ran to Cerberus for help and had their free-will sucked away.”

The stare Kaidan fixed Jack with was so cold and steely that for a moment, his words hung in the air between them, until the Armax VI announced over the intercom:

“Commander Shepard will be entering the Arena in 20 minutes!” and crowds began gathering around the observation windows.

“And you think you can stop ‘em, _Major_?” Jack smirked.

“Doesn’t matter if I think I can or not. I’m going to give everything I’ve got.”

“Damn, Kaidan! You and Shepard are right for each other after all!” Jack bolted up and punched Kaidan on an armored shoulder and beckoned the men towards the locker-room “Stick close and I’ll teach you some tricks with those biotics!”

Kaidan turned to Shepard and shrugged, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips.

++

Jack, Kaidan, and Shepard stood craning their necks to try to spot the telltale shapes that would denote where the first wave of enemies would come from. Shepard finally spotted the trace on a far platform, and the three ran to take up position across from it.

“Blasteroid! One of my favorites.” Kaidan laughed, “What’re we up against?”

“Oh you’ll see.” Jack smiled darkly.

_“5… 4… 3… 2… 1…”_

All at once, Abominations were storming them across the gangway. Behind them, Collector Captains were taking up position, the heavy tread of Scions behind them.

“…Collectors...”

“Figured if I told you, you might pussy out again!” Jack screamed, letting a shockwave fly down the narrow gangway, flinging aloft four Abominations.

“Not on your life!” Kaidan yelled back, then to Shepard “Together on the heavy, 11 o’clock!” without looking at Shepard he flung the floating, burning husks at one of the two Scions. Shepard rose from cover and flung his own shockwave at one of the floating Abominations. His shockwave met Kaidan’s warp field…

There was a flash: flaming corpses exploding against the intersecting biotic fields tore the Collector Captain apart. Two dead-eye shots to the Scion’s head made it drop to the ground

_“Kill Streak, Shepard: Six!”_

“Going.” Shepard barked, biotics flaring.

“Stay safe.”

“You too.” Shepard hopped onto the railing, shoulders thrown back, then gone in a flash of light as the air slammed behind him like a thunder clap.

Jack stared at Kaidan.

“…okay, now I’m horny.”

Kaidan grinned.

“I need to put a couple slugs in Shepard’s direction, then we’ve got to handle that second Scion. Gimme a hand?” Without waiting for an answer, he popped up and landed a full clip in the Scion Shepard was fighting. Shepard rolled back from a broad swing, slammed his fist into the ground: the nova made the Scion explode into twinkling lights.

“…Damn. Alright, boys, let me show you how it’s done.” Jack jumped up and ran up the gangway at the Scion that was just spawning on the left.

“Jack, wait!”

She tossed a few Abominations out of the way and threw a shockwave at the Scion, who shrugged off the assault and returned a shockwave of his own, threw Jack off her feet.

 A Captain popped up and took out her shields. She flailed on the ground for a moment, rolling to avoid more fire, flinging another shockwave in the direction of the Scion.

Kaidan focused a reave field around the monster. The combined force of Kaidan’s careful reave and Jack’s powerful shockwave detonated the blast, scent it reeling backwards.

“We’re overrun, Commander. Leaving the heavy to you, we got clean up.” He ran up the bridge, unloading the rest of his clip into the stumbling Scion. Shepard was around back flushing out the newly spawned Captain.

Jack stumbled to her feet just in time to see the three Abominations she had left to float off the stage had instead landed on the bridge, and were now flanking her from both sides.

“Come on, you fuckers!” The nearest target swung at her and she raised her gun to its face, holding down the trigger. As the shot connected, a blue light enveloped her and the husk exploded into a shower of flames. She was in a stasis field, Abominations pawing uselessly at her, picked off by Kaidan one by one. The stasis field dissipated a minute later.

“What the _hell_ was that?” She growled, getting in Kaidan’s face. “Stasis field? Trying to keep me from scoring any points? What the fuck!”

“Your barriers were down and you shot that Abomination point blank. The explosion would’ve killed you!” He frowned, “Never used a stasis field as emergency rescue before?”

“I don’t need your help!” she screamed back.

“We’re a team. We help each other out.”

“I know how to fight Collectors, asshole. I fought the real ones.”

“Well then _act_ like it, Jack!”

“Kaidan,” Shepard’s voice on the comms, “my six”

“Roger,” Kaidan shoved Jack to one side and with only a second to assess the situation let loose a cryo blast on the newly spawned Scion.  Shepard bolted off to take out the final Captain in a far corner.

The Scion’s pace slowed to a crawl, but it turned to Kaidan and lobbed a grenade. Kaidan lit up immediately with a barrier and jumped into the path of the grenade, which bounced off his chest and exploded in front of him, wiping out his barrier but providing a shadow where Jack took no splash damage, her shields recharging.

Kaidan raised his rifle and emptied the clip before reaving his foe. As he reached for another clip on his belt, Shepard appeared in a flash of light, sending the flaming Scion flying backwards and over the railing.

_“Round One is Over.”_

Shepard sprinted back over to Jack and Kaidan, chest heaving slightly at his exertions. He clapped Kaidan on the shoulder and pulled both Jack and Kaidan into a brief huddle.

“How’s everyone doing? Feeling good?”

Jack looked up at the score clock: only 47 seconds had passed since the match began.

“Fuck. You guys…” she shook her head, “You boys sure know how to show a girl a good time. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let myself get embarrassed by you old timers, though! What’s the plan?”

Kaidan grinned and the huddle dissolved as they went to take up new positions and restock ammo, Shepard giving a few simple orders over the comms.

_“5… 4… 3… 2… 1…”_

As soon as the first heavy appeared, Shepard barked out “Kaboom” and Kaidan scrambled up, locking the heavy in his sights and flinging a warp field forward ahead of Shepard’s flare then both ducked back behind cover as the stage rocked with the resulting explosion.

_Kill Streak, Shepard: five!_

Jack cackled madly and flung some rushing Abominations into the air, finishing them off this time with a few blasts from her sub machine gun.

“I got clean-up,” Shepard intoned over the comms, silenced pistol taking out a few Seeker Swarms ahead of Jack as she rushed forward.

“Jack,” Kaidan called calmly through her earpiece, “Take out the right side. I’ll keep the left busy till you come around back and we’ll tighten the noose.”

“I like the way you think, loverboy!” She picked up a Collector Captain and flung him into a wall so hard he split open before disappearing in a whoosh. She sprinted around the central pillar and stood face to face with a Scion who had seen her maneuver; the Captain was also whirling around, gun trained on Jack, her biotics were not ready for anything forceful enough to repel a Scion and a Collector Captain. “I thought you said you were gonna—“

Suddenly, as the Scion was raising its arm to strike, the arm was encased in blue and swung wildly to the left, cleaving the Captain’s skull and whirling the lumbering monster’s whole body off balance, exposing the fleshy hump on its back to Jack’s attack.

“—alright, never mind… I can work with that.” She executed the Scion point-blank and heard Shepard pop in on her 9 o’clock, his grunt around the pillar as he let loose another nova.

_“Round Two is Over.”_

They met again on their starting platform in a quick huddle, Kaidan wincing slightly but still smiling.

“How’s everyone doing?” Shepard said rubbing their shoulders

“What the hell was that stunt, Kaidan, catching that big guy’s arm like that?”

“Oh, well you know when you put a mass lowering field around something, it tends to arc through their whole body? You can isolate limbs with a warp field. So: tiny warp field at the shoulder, pull the arm. Takes less energy than a full blown lift/push/pull,” he smirked. “Or you can come up with other creative things to do.”

“No shit! Shepard, can you do this?”

“I’m not into delicate operations.” Shepard shrugged, “If I can manage a warp field at all, it’s the size of a rhino and about as precise.”

“Doesn’t really make much sense when your life’s on the line, but I figure the arena’s a great place to take a few risks,” Kaidan winked at Jack.

They missed the countdown, and a sudden ‘ _Skreeee’_ interrupted the banter. Kaidan barely had time to make a warning grunt as he rushed out in front of Shepard, barrier burning blue, as he took a direct hit from a Praetorian beam, knocking him backwards.

“Kaidan!”

“’m alright.” Kaidan groaned, rolling back up behind cover. “Oh man. Looks like I got clean-up.”

“Alright. Going.”

“Stay safe.”

“You too.” Shepard charged.

Jack whipped around and flung her strongest warp field ahead of Shepard: he was after the Praetorian that had just struck Kaidan. Shepard collided with the floating bug with enormous force, but its barriers were barely affected even after his strongest nova. He rolled backwards, then charged forward at a weaker enemy.

Kaidan was up, his shields just recharging as he put some shots into the enemies Shepard had appeared in the midst of.

“I’m fine. Focus on the Heavy,” came Shepard’s voice over the comms.

“Roger.” Kaidan reaved the bug and ducked behind cover as its beam blasted the space he’d been occupying a second earlier. “Jack, try grabbing one of its legs!”

Jack glanced over her cover, took a deep breath: warp field, then pulled as hard as she could, focusing on the tendril legs. The floating monstrosity was spun around in the direction of her pull until she made the warp field too big and it arced out of hand. Kaidan made the best of the situation by reaving it again, detonating the field.

_“Maximum Kill Streak, Shepard!”_

“Jack!” Kaidan called. His teeth were grit into a fierce grin, holding his fists together in front of his face, then abruptly pulling them apart.

Jack grinned, running her tongue across her teeth.

The two biotics leapt up, Kaidan grabbing its right limbs in a biotic field, Jack grabbing the left, their faces scrunched up with concentration, careful not to let their fields get out of hand. The Praetorian screamed and flailed its mandibles, unable to advance, unable to turn to lock onto either of them.

“Shepard!” Kaidan shouted, face a mask of concentration “Come on down.”

The next instant the giant Praetorian exploded: Shepard, awash in blue flame, came charging through its body with a crack, landing on one knee between Kaidan and Jack. The three biotic fields twisted together behind him. Kaidan and Jack hurled the rent halves to either side before the holographic gore arcing into the air and clinging to Shepard’s armor fizzled away.

_“The match goes to Shepard!”_

The three biotics stood beneath the holographic fireworks, watching the silhouettes of the cheering crowd above.

“That was the most fucking awesome thing I’ve ever seen.” Jack smiled, punching Shepard in the chest, “You boys are gonna be alright together, huh.”

Shepard rolled his eyes, but smiled when Kaidan put his arm around his waist briefly. “Always good to have your approval, Jack.”

“Let’s hit Purgatory for some drinks. On me,” She said as the elevator appeared in one of the holographic walls.

“Nah, I’ll get drinks; you made the arena appointments.” Kaidan said, wincing slightly as he rubbed his temple. Shepard covered Kaidan’s hand in his own before glancing up at the glass dome and dropping it back to his side.

“Migraine?”

“Yeah, it’s not bad. I think I’ll be okay.”

“Aww, come on, Princess!” Jack laughed slapping Kaidan on the back. “You got a headache? You mean to tell me all that stuff out here was just for show? Man up!”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. It’s just an L2 flare-up.”

Jack’s face went pale and her expression fell, “...L2…? You’re L2?”

“Yeah. Never know just when it’s going to start acting up.”

“…I think I’m definitely buying the drinks now.”

++

About an hour later they sat at Jack’s usual table at Purgatory, sipping drinks. Shepard held his glass aloft:

“Here’s to fresh starts!” he said, looking affectionately at Kaidan.

“Hear, hear!” Kaidan chuckled, returning his gaze.

“Here’s to me putting my foot in my mouth.” Jack said, slurping some protein supp out of the pouch Kaidan had brought for her. “Agh, this stuff tastes like dog shit.”

“Doesn’t matter how it tastes. It would taste awful after having to eat it as often as I’ve had to in my life. Guess I’m glad it tastes bad from the start so I’m not disappointed.”

“All we ever got was juice at Hotel Cerberus. Only the best for their precious little mutants.” She grimaced taking a shot to chase down the awful taste. “I know I was a bitch about it earlier, Kaidan, but I gotta ask about that defective piece of shit you’ve got in your head. The Cerberus doctors used to tell us that all the L2’s ended up bat shit crazy and homicidal.”

“I get that a lot.” Kaidan said nonchalantly.

“When I broke out I thought it was all Cerberus bullshit, but talking to some other people on a merc run once? Found out they heard pretty much the same thing. You’re the first L2 I ever met.”

“Yeah, some people have it really bad. Crippling seizures or psychotic breaks. I just get migraines.”

“’Just’ migraines…” Shepard frowned.

“Compared to psychosis, I’ll take ‘em,” Kaidan replied.

“Speaking of which, how’s your head? This music can’t be helping.”

“Heh. The music’s downright soothing compared to gunfire. Trust me Shepard, I’m okay.” A seductive glint came into his eyes. “Maybe we can do a little dancing, huh?”

“Ha, I always love watching _Shepard_ try to dance.” Jack laughed.

“Me too,” Kaidan said, with a very different tone. “But first, we better all get a little more drunk.” He stood up.

“Put ‘em on my tab.”

“No, this one’s on me. Thanks though, Jack.” Kaidan walked off towards the bar.

Jack watched him go and rolled her eyes.

“…Okay, Shepard, I gotta admit. The goody-goody’s a catch.”

“Yeah. He is.” Shepard’s finger gently traced the lip of his glass, watching the way the dance-floor lights caught in the bottom.

“You sure you two are gonna last? Because I might wanna have my turn if you two ever decide to split. Or one quick ride, I’ll bring him back in one piece. Mostly.”

“I knew you had a soft-spot for the ‘goody-goody’ types.” Shepard smirked.

“Nah. I could bring out his inner bad-boy. It’s in there…”

“Sure is.” He suppressed a grin, “But no, we’re happy together. I don’t think I ever want to be with anyone else.”

“Shepard! You big, romantic boy scout! Do I hear wedding bells?”

Shepard shrugged.

“I don’t know if we’re ready for that step yet.”

“Well, personally, I think marriage is bullshit, but I’ve never met someone I didn’t want to drop about 5 seconds after he made me come. At least, unless I think he can make me come again. But if you think what you and hair-gel princess have is what you’re looking for…” She shrugged.

“We’ve been busy with the war and all.”

“Hey, take what you can get where you can get it.”

“I don’t know if that’s what Kaidan wants, anyhow.” Shepard stared after him to the bar.

“Shepard, watching that boy fight, he’s not somebody that fucks around with what he wants.”

“Yeah. I know.” Shepard swallowed, words barely audible over the thrum of the music, “He used to hold back so much in a fight…”

Jack drummed her fingers on the table in the awkward silence “…I can show you some fun biotic bedroom tricks? Or I can show them to loverboy, if you’d rather.” She smiled slyly.

“That’s the second time today you thought you could show Kaidan something new about biotics…” Shepard returned her smile with a wry glare. Jack raised her eyebrows.

“You kinky perv!” She slapped his arm across the table and roared with laughter, leaned back in her chair, “Ah. Feels good to spend a day with adults, away from my kids.”

“You talk about them a lot. I think you miss them.”

“Fuck you.” She took another sip, “Sure I miss them, I trained them for god’s sake. They’re… they’re my kids.”

“Ever thought about having kids of your own, Jack?”

“Fuck no!”

“Never thought you’d be teaching a bunch of teenagers how to use their biotics either.” There was a glint in Shepard’s eyes when he winked.

“Bring someone else into this shitty universe?” Jack huffed, “I’m heartless, but damn. Even I have limits.”

“They wouldn’t have to have the life you had,” Shepard said softly, flicking his glass to hear it ring.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s true.” She looked down at the table, “I think I’d make a shitty mom.”

“I think you’d be good at it. You’ve got a lot of love stored up you haven’t had a chance to let out. You’d spoil your kids.”

“Ugh! Fuck _off_ Shepard! I wouldn’t like it!” She roared, but smiled, rolling her eyes at Shepard’s warm smile, “Sounds like you’re the one that should be having kids.”

“Hm.”

Jack glanced up to see that Kaidan was still waiting for service at the bar, leaned in and spoke in a low, earnest voice, “You and loverboy talked about kids?”

“Why the interest?” His eyes narrowed.

“You were the one bringing it up.”

“Don’t know why you’d care about the two of us.” He sipped from the rim of the empty glass.

“You’re the first one who ever cared about me as a person Shepard. Well… the first person in a long time who didn’t just see me as a tool.” She scooted her chair closer, as if afraid someone would overhear her. “People look at me differently when you introduce me to them, and I’ve been trying to earn that.”

“What’s that got to do with kids?”

“I never knew my parents, Shepard, but when I was a kid, if I’d had the choice, I’d choose people like you and Kaidan. There’s a lot of kids out there like me who need a home… so if you guys are even _considering_ …” She glanced up and saw Kaidan returning to the table, “You guys aren’t normal, shitty humans. You guys are special, so whatever you guys are planning on doing, don’t waste any more fucking time. And if you break that man’s heart, I’m gonna cut off your balls.” She leaned back and scooted her chair back, Shepard smiled warmly at her, and she frowned at the table.

“Drink up my friends, tonight we dance!” Kaidan set three shots down, held his aloft as the other two raised theirs. “Here’s to better days ahead!” The three threw back their shots.

“Woo! This is the good stuff, loverboy!”

“I’ll be damned if I’m gonna skimp on whiskey on vacation.” He settled his chair a little closer to Shepard’s, enough so that Shepard could reach an arm around his shoulder and gently rub the back of his neck.

“So the two of you are probably the most famous humans in the galaxy right now, do people, like, recognize you and shit? Paparazzi?”

“Not really,” Shepard said, “most people don’t recognize me without the armor. A lot of aliens can’t really tell humans apart anyhow.”

“You guys worried the news is gonna find out about you two… y’know…”

Kaidan and Shepard looked at one another and Shepard made a sort of shrug as he continued massaging Kaidan’s neck.

“Nope.” Kaidan said “Like Ben—er, Shepard said, most people don’t recognize us. Helps to come to dark clubs like this, and we’re not gonna make out when Armax Arena is broadcasting Shepard’s matches on the extranet with our names all over, but if someone finds out, so be it.”

“Speaking of dark clubs, you said something about a dance floor earlier?” Shepard said, nuzzling the gray above Kaidan’s temple.

“I guess I did at that.” Kaidan smirked, standing up and pulling Shepard’s hand. “Lead the way.”

Shepard led the trio up to the dance floor, when suddenly Jack hustled up to whisper in Kaidan’s ear, “You hurt Shepard and I’m gonna kick your ass, okay?”

Kaidan stopped and turned on the stairs.

“Only way I’m leaving that man is in a body bag.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that.”

The upstairs dance floor was packed as the trio found a corner, Jack immediately bursting out in laughter at Shepard’s awkward, all-in-the-arms shuffling; swatting Kaidan on the ass when he began his own bobbing pop-and-lock. Jack’s own dancing was fluid and unselfconscious, though every time the lovers’ bodies slowed and they began to drift together, she floated away as if to give them space. Quickly, though, either Shepard or Kaidan would glance over and notice Jack receding into the crowd and they would open up to make sure they were on the floor as a party of three.

“Good thing you boys look so fuckin’ good on the battlefield, because you’re two of the sorriest dancers I’ve seen!” Shen concluded at last, warm whiskey breath shouted between the two. “Since your solo routine’s so shit, might as well practice together. I’m gonna scope out the rear-view on tall-dark-and-brooding over by the bar!” Jack yelled, all but pushing the two men together as she threw up her hands, sliding off into the crowd with graceful movements. Kaidan smiled at Shepard, the two of them bobbing another moment before Shepard wrapped his hands around Kaidan’s waist.

“Nice to work off the stress, huh?” He grinned.

“Heh, yeah. Look at us, huh? First shore leave in forever and we spend our days in the arena fighting the same old bad guys.” Kaidan said, one hand on Shepard’s shoulder, the other pulling him in by the back of his head until their faces were close enough to be heard without having to shout.

“No stakes, though.”

“Nothing but your millions of fans.”

“Those stakes I can handle.” He raised an eyebrow. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the arena.”

“Yeah, me too. Fun to let loose once in a while. Not have to worry about ammo, or about--y’know--dying. Just shooting some stuff up.”

“So Jack was right: you _do_ have a dark side.”

“She said that, huh?” Kaidan chuckled, “I’ve got a dark side like she’s got a soft side. It’s there but I’d never admit it to a stranger.” He pulled Shepard into a kiss, light pressure on his lips until Shepard opened Kaidan’s mouth with his tongue and their hips came together, their rhythm independent of the pulse of the music. Kaidan leaned back, pulling on Shepard’s upper lip. “Mmmm. You meet the strangest people, Shepard.”

“I’m just grateful I have someone ‘normal’ to come home to.”

“Ha! I don’t know about normal, but yeah. You come home to me.”

“Let’s make that a regular thing.”

“Mm. I like the sound of that.” He nipped at Shepard’s lip possessively before Shepard’s arms locked behind his back and again brought their mouths together. The crush around them didn’t seem to notice, and the heat between them built as the tempo of the music doubled as a new DJ took control.

Kaidan winced and Shepard pulled back.

“Headache’s not going away, huh?”

“Heh. Just lost my left eye. Aura.”

“I’m sorry.” Shepard frowned, “A dance club was a bad idea.”

“No, I wanted to come. Damn. Dammit Shepard. I was really looking forward to…” he grunted in frustration as he surreptitiously slid his hand down to grab Shepard through his trousers.

Shepard chuckled, kissed Kaidan on the forehead.

“Let’s get you home before this gets worse.”

“Yeah. Can we… _not_ mention this to Jack?” Kaidan asked rubbing his left eye with a balled-up fist.

Shepard pulled Kaidan closer to covertly search for Jack, locating her over near a tall human bouncer, but mostly intently watching Kaidan and Shepard dance. He smiled.

“You got it.”

He slung his arm around Kaidan’s waist in a way that looked affectionate without giving away just how much he was guiding him. They walked past Jack on their way down, giving her a wave. She hooted back and made a few obscene gestures before belting out a: “Have a fun night, loverboys!”

Kaidan rested his head on Shepard’s shoulder in the car on the ride home, by the time they reached the Silversun Strip, Kaidan could barely see at all. A half-hour later, as they were settling into bed, the pain hit hard despite the medication Shepard had insisted Kaidan take. A few hours later, when Kaidan had finally managed to fall asleep, Shepard ran a hand over Kaidan’s back, smiling in the dark despite the worry that had been anchoring his brow since they got in the cab. He drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Citadel DLC - Samara visits Shepard at the apartment, and Kaidan gets an unexpected conversation from Queen Karin Chakwas herself. Gun-range Nerdery also occurs.


	30. The Difference between Thirty Stories and a Hundred

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Citadel DLC - Samara comes to visit Shepard and they discuss their personal brushes with fame and duty. Dr. Chakwas appears to put some things in perspective for Kaida, and after hemming and hawing over it forever, Kaidan finally gives Shepard his present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said this chapter would be Thane's funeral, but I needed to move this chapter here. It made more sense.

> _“It is trivial to say that power, or even vice, is more interesting than virtue, and people say so only when they have not troubled to take a look at virtue and see how amazing, and sometimes inhuman and unlikable, it really is.”_

++

Samara was practically bristling for a fight by the time Shepard opened the door to his apartment for her. She scanned him once over, as if appraising his jeans and leather jacket.

“I came as quickly as I could. What’s wrong?” She stood bolt straight.

“I didn’t mean to worry you,” Shepard replied. “When I saw you were on the Citadel, I wanted to see you again.”

Samara blinked, impassive.

“We’ve said our farewells, Shepard.”

“Are we going to stand on formalities?” Shepard backed further into the apartment and Samara followed stiffly. A flick of a switch and the shades over the apartment window raised. “These big picture windows remind me of our talks in the Normandy’s Observation Lounge.”

“This view doesn’t have quite the same effect as a galaxy of stars,” Samara joined him at the window, the barest hint of irony in her level tone. “But I can see where it might make one sentimental.”

The space directly beneath Shepard’s window had been given over to ad space, the shifting swirl of monolithic hologram lighting tinging the whole view orange. There was a small and exclusive nightclub across the street, its patrons dancing to a beat whose throbbing tone didn’t reach Samara and Shepard watching on the other side of the glass.

“I also enjoyed our talks, Shepard,” Samara continued. “Very much.”

Shepard smiled, activating his omni-tool.

“Hey, look what I found…” He barely attempted to mask his own amusement at the subterfuge, “An old issue of ‘Justicar Heroes,’ May 2140. It says that you _personally_ lifted fifty refugees across a raging floodplain on Nevos after smugglers blew up a dam.”

“That ‘news source’ tends to exaggerate,” she replied diplomatically, but the tension in her shoulders loosened somewhat.

“So you didn’t almost drown while saving a child who had been torn from her mother’s grasp?” he teased.

“The smugglers were not so lucky that I survived.” She smiled at that and Shepard returned it with a grin of his own.

Outside the window, sky cars rocketed past in both directions. The apartment Anderson had gifted to him meant that Shepard now owned one of the more high-end pieces of real-estate on the strip: not quite low enough to ground level to have a balcony—the atmosphere cut-off line was only two stories above, and oxygen was thin—but low enough to keep it out of the fast travel lanes. All the cars passing by were local, slow, and barely made a sound as the zipped past.

“Are there more stories like this?” Shepard asked tentatively.

“Perhaps,” Samara folded her arms. “You might be amused by the June 2085 issue: ‘Justicar Samara: Cold-Blooded Justice Runs Hot.’”

The crawling pillar of holographic lights on the building across the street faded smoothly from orange to blue, the other advertisements on the street transitioning as well to maintain maximum contrast with one another.

“It is not so difficult for me to find stories of your exploits,” Samara supplied, turning to sit on the couch. She waited for Shepard to join her before continuing, speaking with a characteristic precision. “I think that you are remarkable, Shepard. When the vids sing your praises and call you a hero, does it make you blush? Do you agree? What do you feel?”

Shepard leaned forward on his elbows and lost his gaze in the fire burning in the hearth.

“It’s humbling.” He cleared his throat, “But honestly, if people feel that I’m making a difference, that bolsters me, my team, and our efforts.” Samara stared a long moment. “…what now?”

“I am content as we are, Shepard.” She eased back into the couch, “Let us sit a while longer, even if there is nothing to say.”

And so they did.

Across the street, the club-goers continued to dance in silence and the local traffic slipped past the window with a whine. The advertisements glowed and pushed against one another like iridescent fish, the pillar of holograms slinking up to the tops of the skyscrapers. The traffic doubled in speed ten stories up: the intra-ward traffic lanes. Then it doubled again twenty stories above that: trans-ward and shipping lanes. Then, where the hologram met the stars, low-flying frigates departing any of the dozens of docks: leaping into the fray to fight the Reapers.

Shepard watched it all out from his sofa.

“I want you to know that I admire you too, Samara,” Shepard said gently, voice quiet as a passing skycar.

“Something is troubling you, Shepard. Perhaps you were not aware of the number of stories about you in the news?”

“No, I haven’t read any.” He crossed one leg over this knee, “But I figured they were there. I _am_ flattered by the attention, and it helps to keep hope alive. I guess I never thought I would sit still long enough for them to catch up to me, is all.”

“Only a person as remarkable as the stories say would have the ability to escape the number of tales about him.” Samara smiled gently, “You’ve led an active life, Shepard. Cherish, while you can, the stillness. It centers you before the next battle.”

“I want to,” Shepard said softly. “And maybe that worries me. I feel pulled in two directions. Well… I always feel pulled in two directions. Just trying to decide what I’d _like,_ not just what I _should_ do.”

“You are a keen observer of others. You allow their emotions to dictate your actions. You _are_ what the situation _requires_ you to be.”

“…good eye.” Shepard had become stiff, watching Samara warily from under a crumpled brow.

“Justicars must _also_ be keen observers of others.” She stretched, just barely, so that her elbow rested on the back of the couch. “Do not worry, Shepard. You are far too difficult to read in any useful way.”

“I’m glad we have you on our side against the Reapers,” he rolled his eyes.

“Playing courier for the Leviathan is hardly trying my training as a Justicar.”

Shepard froze at the mention.

“You’re helping Leviathan?”

“Yes. My order has been smuggling the Leviathan control orbs into priority Reaper controlled areas. I and many like me were in space when the Reapers invaded Thessia. Unable to enter an asari system without being shot down by Reaper capital ships, we decided on another path. It does not suit many of my kind: the code would compel us to fight valiantly to exterminate the Reaper threat and perish against the relentless tide.”

“But?”

“There are romantic interpretations of the Code many Justicars still cling to. But the Code is not meant to be interpreted: it simply is. We do not fight in armies, and our solitary nature and proficiency makes us ideal candidates for stealth operations.” She looked wistfully into the fire, “The Leviathan are powerful indeed. Wherever we place the orbs, they disrupt Reaper operations enough for me to kill hundreds of their abominations.”

“Hm.” He shifted, a shiver raking down his spine. “That’s one mission I’m glad to be done with.”

“From the missions we’ve shared, I cannot imagine there are many missions you’d care to relive.”

“No,” Shepard’s eyes held fast to the neon out the window. “Maybe a few, chasing Saren. Crashing across the surface of a hostile planet in the Mako, Kaidan at my back. It was simple. Exploring the galaxy, routing mercs, helping biotic extremists. Some missions, I didn’t need to fire a shot. Seeing Kaidan watch the stars through his rifle scope.” His chuckle turned sour, “No threat of the apocalypse, yet. No nightmares.”

“You’ve been suffering nightmares, Shepard?” Samara turned to face him.

“Since Earth. Everything’s gotten worse since I met the Leviathan.” He was shivering even as he mentioned the encounter.

“Have you discussed these with Kaidan?”

“Mentioned them.”

“And?”

“…I lean on him a lot. I don’t need to worry him more than I already do.”

“I have never spoken at length with your mate, Shepard,” Samara said carefully, “but the way you portray him, he is more than capable of listening to your nightmares. Looking at the stars through his scope?”

Shepard chuckled.

“Never when there was a threat of hostiles—he was absolutely focused—but leave it to Kaidan to find the quiet moments.”

“Did you ever join him, looking at the stars?”

“No. I never did.” Shepard sighed, “I’ve never really done that for myself, either. Growing up on Earth, in the city, I never thought about them much. This place reminds me of where I grew up. All the neon and bright lights washing out the stars. It gives me some comfort to be around all these lights.”

“I can see why these windows remind you of our time on the Normandy, then.”

“Kaidan loves the stars though. You’d like him.” Shepard smoothed a hand over his head. “Used to go camping in the mountains with his father.”

“But you didn’t ‘go’ anywhere, Shepard? The city was a comfort to you.”

“Not all the time. I never had a father. But, when I could, I’d go down to the sea and swim a while.”

“I understand: you had your own universe to explore.”

Shepard laughed, the first loud genuine laugh he’d had since they’d begun talking.

“That might be going a little too far!”

Samara merely lifted an eyebrow.

++

Meanwhile, out of the perpetual neon twilight of the Wards, it was a quiet ‘afternoon’ on the Presidium. Still dressed in his Alliance uniform, Kaidan had spent the morning in the C-Sec gym and sifted through some comms reports from his students before heading up to a Presidium park to finish his novel.

He was more than halfway through _Manticore_ on his data-pad and had spent the afternoon sitting in the soft-edged shade of what may have been an elm tree in the park, alternately reading and staring up at the sky. For the last fifteen minutes, he had read and reread a single line several times and lay very still as the simulated clouds drifted by. The novel’s protagonist was weeks into his therapy with a psychoanalyst, and had been reminiscing about his father when he had a peculiar dream where he saw the titular manticore. The vision of himself as a poisonous and dubiously trustworthy beast had shaken him, and his therapist was attempting to allay his fears:

> _“I assure you that dreams are not fanciful. They always mean exactly what they say, but they do not speak the language of every day. So they need interpretation, and cannot always be sure we have interpreted all, or interpreted correctly. But we can try. You appear in this dream; you are in two forms, yourself and this creature with your face...”_

“Kaidan,” Dr. Chakwas approached slowly across the grass of the little park. “Imagine running into you on a station as big as this. I hope I’m not interrupting?”

“No, no.” Kaidan scrambled to stand, but Chakwas dismissed the courtesy with a wave and carefully eased herself down onto the grass. “Just trying to catch up on my reading, long as we’ve got some shore leave.”

“You seemed _very_ lost in thought,” She winked carefully. “Or else asleep?”

“Read something that made me think about Shepard, actually.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

“May I ask what you’re reading?”

“My father’s favorite book series. It’s called the Deptford Trilogy. I started reading the first two books as a teenager, but I never got to the third. Figured I’d better reread the first two before I read the last one: it was dad’s favorite. Been reading them off and on between missions, but…”

“What’s it about?”

“I guess… I guess it’s about how we remember people, how we experience our lives, how those experiences shape us, sometimes make us myths to others or… or else we become mythologized by people. It’s about people.”

“Is there a particular topic that’s arrested your attention, today?” She scooched herself over to lean her back against the trunk of the tree, brushing some errant blades of grass from her smock.

“Just a passage about dreams.”

“As in ‘night-time, unconscious visions’ or ‘wistful hopes for the future?’”

“Well, both have been on my mind plenty, to be honest.” Kaidan laughed, and it brought a satisfied smirk to Karin’s face. “In this case, I think it’s the… the night time ones.”

“Shore leave gives plenty of time for both, I’d suppose.”

“It sure does,” Kaidan sighed. “It’s nice to actually settle down for a while. How about you, Doc? What kinds of dreams have you been having for the future?”

“Oh dear,” She chuckled. “I’m much too old for that kind of thinking these days.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Kaidan teased, “You were practically running the trauma ward at Huerta Memorial, and in a pretty good spot back on Arcturus before.”

“And _both_ times, I dropped the position immediately when offered a chance to fly aboard the Normandy again. What does _that_ tell you about my aspirations?”

“That you’re a damn fine doctor, a good friend,” he smiled sadly, “And loyal.”

“Oh stop.” She actually bat his shoulder, “Don’t you go beating yourself up about not joining Cerberus to help Shepard. I get enough of that from Greg.”

Kaidan stuttered for a moment.

“I’m… uh… I’m—“

“—and _don’t_ apologize either!” There was a mock exasperation in her tone that became something like a giggle. “I may be ‘loyal’ but that doesn’t make me anything special. The truth is, I owe _you_ an apology. I left Huerta to join the Normandy while you were still in a coma.”

“You went where you could do the most good,” Kaidan shrugged.

“I’m not sure I know how to measure that,” she smiled gently. “But I went where I knew the good I was doing would matter most to me. And I knew that once you woke up, you would make the same choice.”

“…you knew that, did you?” The tops of Kaidan’s ears turned pink beneath his graying hair.

“Are you joking?” she guffawed. “The crew of the Normandy is as close to family as I’ll ever have. And I _know_ my family. That’s also how I knew that, family or no, I wasn’t the best doctor for you during your coma.”

“I appreciate it, Doctor.”

“As usual when you were hurt, I had a harder time calming Commander Shepard down looking at you unconscious on the table.”

“What?”

“Did you know he delayed a Council meeting to come visit you in Huerta?”

“…no, I didn’t know that.”

“He cares about you a great deal.” She closed her eyes, “And you care about him. That’s why I knew you’d be joining us on the Normandy.”

“I joined the Normandy because…” Kaidan trailed off, rubbed a balled-fist into his eye. “Umm, because I wanted to be on the front lines. Knew I was the right man to be on the front lines. It was… it was about the mission, too.”

“Of course it was,” she might have rolled her eyes behind closed eyelids. “Why can’t it be both? The two of you are so invested in your duty that I’m sure it’s hard to know where your commitment to the man ends and your commitment to his mission begins. But don’t spoil an old woman’s favorite romance.”

Kaidan’s eyes got wide at that, and Doctor Chakwas peeked one eye open with a grin.

“Shepard’s devoted to his friends and… yeah. And to me. But—“

“Kaidan,” she laid on her side, propped on one elbow. “Do you remember our first mission to Eden Prime? You had hauled in an unconscious Commander Shepard after he’d come into contact with that Prothean beacon. When he woke up, do you want to know what the first thing he did was?”

“What?”

She sat up a bit and turned her gaze skyward, remembering.

“I cleared the room so he and Anderson could talk. A moment later, Commander Shepard walks out of the infirmary, head still _swimming_ from his experience, marches right up to me and asks about you. Who you were, your service record, your migraines. He stood over your bed after Virmire. He asked about you every chance he got while we worked with Cerberus.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Karin with a look of smug triumph on her face.

“I just don’t want things to get confused; we’ve got a war to win.”

“Yes,” she nodded, “and all the more reason to win it. You were right when you said that I’ve been with Shepard all the way, and what I’ve seen is a man that has grown so much, and so much of it from knowing you.” She chuckled, “Reminds me of what my mother used to say: ‘Is the sea ever more beautiful than when it’s reflecting the sky?’”

“…isn’t it always reflecting the sky?”

“Isn’t it just.”

++

“Perhaps,” Samara blinked, smile still wistful on her lips as she regarded the way Shepard leaned his head on his hands, “this is a decision to be made in union with another.”

“I know who I am,” Shepard retorted, “I take my cues from other people, sometimes I don’t feel like I… _understand_ people. Yeah, that’s true. But I know who I am, and I need to know who I am before I bring something like this to Kaidan.”

“We make many choices alone in this life, Shepard. Not all of them are made this way. Nor are the choices we make alone the most important.”

“Says a justicar?” He smirked. Samara warily scratched at her collarbone.

“I chose to submit myself to a strict and ancient code that has become the order of my days. It was not… not the most important decision of my life.”

Her jaw hardened and Shepard stared for a long moment before nodding and letting the matter rest. 

“Besides,” she continued, “A legacy as large as yours can always use another voice to guide it.”

“My legacy is going to be dead Reapers,” he huffed. “And I’m certainly not alone in making that legacy happen.”

“It is far more than that.”

“That’s all it needs to be. To win this war.”

“A legacy can be made of many things. Some find it in the things they have made—their art and industry outpace them. Some find their legacy in the children they bear…” Samara’s face fell. “Others live on in exploits. In a hundred millennia, who can say which child is truly descended of which great ancestor—or who can make the claim which a thousand others cannot? Who can say who first built the ruins the Reapers have buried over the cycles? An act of kindness which motivates a thousand similar acts over centuries: who can remember the first gentle soul to instigate it?”

“I know,” Shepard brushed his thumb down his jawline. “Legacies don’t last.”

“That was _not_ the point. Legacies become diffuse, they weave themselves into other stories. It is rare for anyone to watch their legacy grow as expansively as yours has. In your own lifetime, you enjoy a privilege normally reserved for mythological heroes, Shepard.” Only her large eyes smiled when she turned to him, “You’ve even risen from the dead.”

“I was _raised_ from the dead,” Shepard snorted. “There’s a difference.”

“Not to our descendants. Can you imagine a future where the old tell the young about you? Call you ‘The Shepard’ and point out your image in the stars?”

“…no.”

“Truly, a story worthy of being remembered.” She folded her hands in her lap, “How little remains of previous cycles after the Reapers’ harvest: no story told longer than 50,000 years. Once you defeat them, who knows how long your name will be remembered?”

“No pressure,” Shepard mustered a smile. “I thought you said legacies were supposed to be ‘diffuse?’”

“’Saving the galaxy’ is already a ‘diffuse’ concept.”

“Maybe that’s what bothers me,” Shepard slid into the corner of the couch. “My name without any ‘me’ in it. I don’t want that. That old man telling his grandson about me… it won’t matter to them whether I chose to be cunning or virtuous. It won’t matter who I save and who I kill—even which _species_ I saved or let die.”

“The forgiveness history affords all its old names, yes.”

“They won’t know my friends,” he murmured. “They won’t know the name of the man I love…”

“No. Like as not.”

“All the things that are important to me won’t be part of my legacy. ‘Saving the galaxy’ is… not the same as that. I have to do it, it’s important. But… Kaidan. My friends. Anderson. Those things tie me to this life.”

“And so, here you sit talking philosophy with a tired old warrior, torn between the desire to forge a legacy built with the one you love and the people you care about, and the desire to take up your hero’s mantle and end this war?”

“No, it doesn’t matter what people say about me. My legacy doesn’t matter. But… my life….” He shook his head violently then, “No, I’m not… I need to focus. I can’t be thinking about that at a time like this. I’ll do whatever needs to be done to finish the Reapers. No matter the sacrifice.”

“Shepard,” Samara stood, folded her arms across her chest. “I’ve lived a long life. My ‘legacy’ is a strange one. I gave birth to three daughters. I killed one: a monster. I watched another die without ever telling her I loved her. My only remaining child will never have daughters of her own, and will live out her life in solitude and confinement. As long and varied as my life has been, hers will be as long and cloistered every moment. My exploits in executing the justicar code will be remembered for a time, devotion to an ancient sect which becomes more irrelevant even as its principles wane from the universe. Do not think that knowing your legacy will _not_ affect you.”

“What if I think I’m too much legend and not enough man, these days?” Shepard said softly.

“Yes,” she nodded soberly. “In centuries as a justicar, there are perhaps 30 stories published about my exploits. In the last year, there have been a hundred, no doubt, published about you. And yet, what is important to those who love your legacy will always be different than what is important to those who love _you_.”

“Yeah…”

“Eons from now, when a woman is telling her granddaughter the story of the Shepard—certain details embellished, certain details omitted—will she say that you died valiantly in your fight with the Reapers? Or will she tell the story of how you lived a long life afterwards? Will it matter to them, which way the story goes once the Reapers are dead?” Samara said gravely. “Will she say ‘the Shepard lived a long and prosperous life’ because, as an old woman, she yearns for the days where life seemed long and beautiful? Will her granddaughter believe this part of the story? Or will she believe instead the Shepard died heroically in the final confrontation, because—as a child—she does not have experience with death, and believes it to be a nobler end to your story?”

“Couldn’t the old woman say that I died, since _she_ is ready for death?” Shepard smiled, “And the young girl wouldn’t believe her, instead believing that ‘The Shepard’ lived because she has so much to look forward to in her own life?”

“Perhaps.” Samara smiled knowingly. “Perhaps Kaidan has an opinion.”

++

“I guess I worry sometimes that Shepard doesn’t get the luxury to choose that: to do the most good where it matters to him most.” Kaidan sighed, running his fingers gently through the grass. “He’s got a lot of weight on his shoulders.”

“Sounds like something you two could stand to talk about.” Doctor Chakwas had removed her boots and was stretching her toes in the cool of the shade.

“He’s opened up more than he used to, that’s for sure. It’s funny, I always used to be asking for his advice on everything, trying to figure out the way he thought about things. These days it seems like I’ve been giving him more and more of my mind about things.”

“Shepard finally feels comfortable enough asking for help,” she yawned. “And _you_ finally have the confidence to give advice.”

“War changes you.”

“ _Love_ changes you, too.”

Kaidan coughed.

“Well… who knows—“

“—Kaidan, you still use the same model Logic Arrest omni-tool as when I first met you, I have a feeling that once you choose a partner—“

“—I _meant,_ ” Kaidan cut in, “…who knows what kind of life will be left, after the war.” He grew sober quickly, “He’s made a lot of tough choices, Karin. And there’ll be harder ones still. Body’s a wreck. _My_ body’s a wreck, so’s my brain. Earth… what’s left of it. Hard to see anything past the war. ”

Chakwas sighed, smoothed a hand down Kaidan’s arm. She pulled her boots on and Kaidan scrambled to his feet to help her off the ground. She accepted his hand.

“I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, Kaidan,” she said at last, “but there’s more of the universe in the deep and dark places than any of us can imagination. It’s a fuller galaxy than any war can take away. So point your bow at the brightest star and sail.”

Kaidan smiled wearily, letting Karin touch his face before she stepped away.

“Thanks, Karin. It’s been good talking to you.”

“Likewise, Kaidan. I’m off to the spa before the keynote at my conference. Plans for the rest of your day?”

“Just going to finish this novel,” he held up his data-pad. “Almost done. Then I’m actually meeting Shepard up on the Embassy level later in a few.”

Dr. Chakwas just smiled and said goodbye, and Kaidan settled back to the grass to continue reading.

> _“…however fashionable despair in the world and about people may be at present, and however powerful despair may become in the future, not everybody, or even most people, think and live fashionably; virtue and honour will not be banished from the world, however many popular moralists and panicky journalists say so. Sacrifice will not cease to be because psychiatrists have popularized the idea that there is often some concealed, self-serving element in it; theologian always knew that. Nor do I think love as a high condition of honour will be lost; it is a pattern in the spirit…”_

++

_“Shepard. Human. Spectre Status recognized.”_

The door to the Spectre Office slid open and locked behind Shepard when he walked in. There was the usual humming and clicking of the servers processing intel from all over the galaxy, relayed to the Citadel for special operations; the ambient, endless news reports coming over the comm channels like hushed voice carry on a urgent conversation in a crowded room. Kaidan never even heard his footfalls as he came up the corridor.

Kaidan himself was stooped over the Spectre Intel station, scrolling through the haptic interface and cross referencing location data with a galaxy map program that manifested over the holo-emitter. Shepard cleared his throat and Kaidan spun around.

“Shepard,” he laughed, shaking his head, “you scared the hell out of me.”

“Sorry, I didn’t think I was late,” Shepard gestured to the half-dozen applications tabs Shepard had called up on his console.

“You’re not, I’m early. Was reading,” he gestured to the data-pad resting next to the console. “but I pretty much finished my novel, so...”

“How long have you been here?”

“Not long enough to get through all these emergency reports,” Kaidan’s dour tone was offset only slightly by a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “But… long enough to start reading emergency reports.”

“Yeah,” Ben closed the distance and tentatively rubbed a hand down Kaidan’s arm. “Come on, we’re… supposed to be on shore leave, remember?”

“Okay, Ben.” Kaidan shook his head and turned back to his console, closing his applications. “Though I can’t believe it’s _you_ telling _me_ that.” Shepard only shrugged. “Anyway, I didn’t call you here about that.”

“Spectre Office is a strange place for a date, Major.”

“Oh this isn’t a date, _Shepard_.” Kaidan took him by the arm.

“Another ‘sanity check,’ then?”

“Not that either.” The two walked over to the seats that looked in on the firing range where a long, silver weapon case sat. Beckoning Shepard to sit, Kaidan placed the box on his lap. “ _This_ is a long time coming.”

“What is this, Kaidan?”

“I bet you’ll recognize it once you open it,” he smiled wryly, letting his knee bump Shepard’s as he sat.

Shepard opened the box and gaped, then gingerly lifted the shotgun out of the padded imprint.

“This is an M-11 Wraith…”

“This is _your_ M-11 Wraith!” Kaidan grinned, watching the way Shepard’s eyebrows rose at the sight of it. It was sturdily built—not as slick and shiny as the Scimitar, and it didn’t look like it came off an assembly line like the Eviscerator. The Wraith had the look of something built for functionality where its every aesthetic component was an accidental result of its extreme attention to its purpose. All the machined fittings had the look of fixtures created for this shotgun in particular. There was an oily bronze sheen to it, and even though it was new, it had the look of a weapon pulled off a mantel display and polished back into working order.

Shepard ensured the safety was active and the heatsinks empty before he hefted it up and down and turned it over in his hands.

“It’s so light.”

“Mhm,” Kaidan leaned over, eyes bright, and tapped heatsink. “The mechanism’s pretty advanced, but it fills the sink in two shots.”

“I’m going to need to adjust my fighting style…” Ben said, practically licking his lips. He ran his fingers along the barrel. “…did you mod this barrel?”

“Yeah, extended. 15% power increase!”

“ _Fifteen?”_

“Yeah!” The two laughed like school boys and gaped at the shotgun, “Oh, oh! Check the internal mod chamber… yeah! It’s your smart-choke! From your Eviscerator. I took it out a couple days ago, had to file it by hand to make it fit.”

“Those are just the mods I would’ve put on it.”

“That’s right.”

Shepard bit his lip and raised it up, casting a sidelong glance at Kaidan.

“These are illegal in Council Space, you know…”

“Eh,” Kaidan shrugged, rubbed one hand across Shepard’s shoulder. “What’s the point of being a Spectre if you can’t enjoy the privileges once in a while?”

“This is too much,” Shepard’s fingers tightened around the firearm even as he met Kaidan’s eyes. “This shotgun costs more than the contents of the Normandy’s weapons locker.” His brow was heavy, searching Kaidan’s expression. Kaidan remained placid.

“Money’s spent, Shepard,” he said gently. “And I can swing it, you know me: living lean.” He shifted in his seat, trying to scooch closer to Shepard before being stopped by the armrest between them. “I uh… bought this a long time ago for you, actually. Been trying to get it modded and ready for you. And then other things kept coming up. Then I… uh… considered maybe I shouldn’t give it to you after all.”

“Why not?”

“That thing you said, after Legion uploaded you into that Geth simulation… you said that you felt that all you ever did was destroy things.” He rubbed the back of his neck, “I didn’t want you to think that… that was the way I see you. Like you’re just a soldier, another ‘gun.’”

Shepard smiled, the wrinkles collecting at the corner of his eyes.

“But then I figured…” Kaidan shrugged. “This war needs you. And you need the best you can get. We both want to end this fight, and I wanted you to have a reminder of that. That I’m here for you, I’m in this fight with you.”

“Thank you, Kaidan.” Ben nodded, gripping the shotgun tight.

“There’ll be other gifts… normal things, y’know? Like we’ve been talking about. But for now,” he nodded at the Wraith, “…this. When this is over, you can sell it over to some Terminus pirates or… or beat it into a plough-share or _whatever_. But when you cross the finish line: you’ll have the best with you. And I’ll be at your side. Every step of the way. We’ll end this.”

Shepard pressed his forehead into Kaidan’s, nodded grimly. The smile that came to his face fought its way up through a mess of emotions; thick eyebrows anchoring the determination in Shepard’s eyes as he stared into Kaidan’s.

“We will,” he said at last, barely audible over the clicking a humming and hushed babbling of the comm chatter and intel VI sorting through the galactic war.

“Although,” Kaidan rolled his eyes, licked his lips. “I am going to miss firing it for myself. I’m not very good with a shotgun, but I’ll be damned if that thing isn’t a pleasure to shoot.”

“You’ve fired this thing?” Shepard sat back with eyes wide.

“Had to get it sighted properly.”

“You _sighted_ it for me, Kaidan?”

“I know how much you hate actually _servicing_ your weapons,” Kaidan laughed. “We’re about the same height and I pay enough attention to your stance… it’ll be close at least.” He grinned furtively, nodded towards the firing range. “…wanna take it for a test-drive?”

“I didn’t bring my armor,” Shepard replied with a wry smirk.

“So?” Kaidan stood, backing towards the firing range door. “I won’t shoot you. You won’t shoot me. And I won’t tell.”

Shepard practically dashed after him into the firing range.

++

Twenty heat-sinks later, and the soldiers were still whooping after every blast.  The shotgun required only the slightest alteration to be perfectly sighted for Shepard’s use, and this was only done at Kaidan’s goading. Mid-range, short-range, long-range: Kaidan kept the targets sliding back and forth along the track.

“This isn’t going to give you a headache, is it?” Shepard shouted, the sound of the blast echoing around the range and the sizzling heat-sink tinkled to the floor.

“Shut up and give me a turn!”

Kaidan didn’t do as well as Shepard, but after a few clips was at least reloading as fast.

“Feel that recoil?” Shepard smiled, slipping up behind Kaidan and placing one hand on his hip. Kaidan pulled the trigger again and Shepard stepped closer into him.

“Yeah, that kick goes right down that leg, doesn’t it?” He leaned back into Shepard, smirking into his eyes over his cheek weld. “Does that kill your hip?”

“It would. Here, I wanna show you something,” he slid his hand up Kaidan’s support arm. “Like this, push forward on the forestock. There, try that.”

Kaidan chuckled, but fired off two rounds in quick succession, the barrel barely kicked up, the recoil mitigated by his support arm. Shepard smiled, pressing a kiss behind Kaidan’s ear, his hand pulling back on Kaidan’s hip. He checked over his shoulder, looking out of the window before turning Kaidan’s face into a kiss.

“Yeah, that is better,” Kaidan whispered against his lips. “Though it _might_ be the fact that I’ve got you wrapped around me taking the kick, huh?”

“I think you’re just naturally gifted,” Ben smirked. “Ready to try the Claymore?”

Kaidan guffawed.

“Shepard, we don’t all have robot muscles; that thing would break my arm.”

“What if I stay wrapped around you to take the kick?”

“Better not risk it,” he teased, “You want me as healthy as possible for the rest of this shore leave, don’t you?”

Shepard laughed, pressed his face into his shoulder.

“Noted.”

“Spending our days in the arena,” Kaidan sighed after a minute, smoothly popping his heat sinks and reloading. “Then when we’re not doing that, we’re in the firing range. Think this is as ‘normal’ as we get, Shepard?”

“You’re laughing, you’re close… you’re safe. That’s all I want,” he whispered. “Also, you’re _warm_ , and that’s good for me.”

Kaidan chuckled.

“Still feeling so chilled?”

“Not right now.” He held Kaidan tighter, nuzzling the hair on the back of his head.

“Aren’t you glad we didn’t go put on armor for this?” Kaidan laughed, setting the Wraith down and turning in Shepard’s arms, not even checking the window before pressing his mouth to Shepard’s. “You always were finicky about your armor. Remember that Predator X? You didn’t ever wear it, gave it to me after one mission with it because… what was it… it ‘felt stuffy?’ I didn’t mind: it was ten times better than the armor I’d been wearing up till then!”

Shepard stepped back with a grin, keeping his hands on Kaidan’s hips.

“I gave that armor because I wanted you to have it,” he said quietly, “I just told you I didn’t like it so you would actually take it.”

Kaidan blinked.

“But you were point, and you were wearing… crap armor, Ben…”

“You… were the only other person who’d fit the Predator…” Shepard looked away, fingers fidgeting on the uniform seams on Kaidan’s hip. “And I wanted to keep you safe.”

Kaidan nodded, took Shepard’s face in both hands and kissed him again.

“Same,” he whispered, handing Shepard the Wraith once again.

They left the Spectre Office not long after—not quite arm-in-arm—but enraptured enough in one another’s company where Kaidan neglected to retrieve his data-pad from the console, the novel completed, but scrolled back to a passage close to the end:

> “ _You don’t know whether or not you are a hero, and you’re bloody well determined not to find out, because you’re scared of the burden if you are and scared of the certainty it you’re not.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, we're half-way there! Thank you for reading this far, everyone! I hope you're still enjoying the story, the fluff, the angst, and are ready for more of all the same. I am actually so excited about the latter half of this story, I wish I could just post it all today. Oh well. 
> 
> Next Chapter:
> 
> Citadel DLC - Thane's funeral. For real.


	31. The Difference between Thane's Funeral and Shepard's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan begs out of attending Thane's memorial service an encounters Spectre Col Vedirus once again.

“Kolyat.”

Kaidan called, stepping out of the downstairs bathroom, finishing rolling the sleeves of his Alliance uniform. The young drell stood near the door to Shepard’s apartment, pensive.

“…Spectre Alenko.” Great, dark eyes blinked, startled. “I apologize, I had been watching the door for early arrivals; I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Umm, yeah. I was actually already here…” Kaidan rubbed the back of his neck. “But before I head out, I wanted to offer my condolences on the loss of your father. I owe him for… for all the friends of mine he protected when I couldn’t be there. It’s a debt I can’t repay.”

“Th-thank you, Major.” He accepted Kaidan’s outstretched hand, “I apologize, I didn’t think to invite you. I… am glad you are here regardless.”

“It’s alright, Kolyat. You had no reason to invite me and I’m gonna be ducking out before the service starts, but I wanted to tell you what I thought of your father. He visited me a bunch while I was in the hospital… if it wasn’t for his visits… well. The doctors put my body back together, but Thane helped me get my head right, y’know?” He nodded to himself, “He talked about you a lot, too. He loved you very much.”

“I will miss him. I feel like I hardly knew him, sometimes. But I’ll miss him,” Kolyat looked down, “It helps to know he mean so much to others who knew him… even less than I did. Please, won’t you stay for the service?”

“Thank you, but I think the service should be for people that served with him.” He shook his head. “If you won’t be offended, I would feel more comfortable leaving the memorial for them.”

“Not at all, Major. Thank you for your kind words. And thank you for being with my father in his final days. In many ways… those last days in Huerta…” Kolyat’s eyes seemed to cloud for a moment “Those days were when he was most alive.”

Kaidan placed a hand on Kolyat’s arm, and bowed his head slightly for a moment in the manner Thane had often exhibited when exiting a conversation. The salarian councilor, Valern, was entering the apartment as Kaidan turned to leave.

“Major Alenko, this is a surprise.”

“Just paying my respects, Councilor, I’ll be leaving now.”

The councilor looked as if he would stop him a moment, but Kaidan brushed past him softly and made for the lift.

No matter the time of day, there was always a bustle of shoppers in the shops at the base of Tiberius Towers. Kaidan drifted from to the other, and finally paused to watch the rotating furniture through the window. In the back of the display was a chocolate brown sofa, a few taps on his omni-tool displayed the price.

There was a shimmer reflected in the glass.

“Hello Kaidan.” Col Vedirus stepped away from a nearby kiosk and stood next to Kaidan, hands clasped behind his back, surveying the chair behind the glass. “I thought I might find you here.”

“Oh really?” Kaidan smiled pleasantly at the fellow Spectre, appraising.

“Of course, how appropriate you of all people should be here,” the salarian Spectre rubbed his hands together, wearing an open-mouthed smile his face was ill-suited for. “Both you and Thane Krios safeguarded the Council in their darkest hour.” His voice trembled with the same romantic excitement as a few days ago.

“I think Thane has one up on me there,” Kaidan scoffed. “Thane saved Valern’s life; I shot a councilor dead.”

“A traitor!”

“Still.”

“ _And_ you defeated Saren!”

“So I fought the galaxy’s prototype Marauder in a park.” Kaidan shook his head.

“Take some comfort in the fact that the Council’s ‘darkest hour’ will always be the one just bright enough where they can actually see the weapons of their attackers.” Col’s tone dripped with cynicism.

“The darkest days are still ahead.”

“Truly.” The bitterness in his voice evaporated instantly, returning to its characteristic sunny lilt. “Still, I can’t help but notice that you are exiting the apartment, rather than entering it.”

“Yeah. I said what I needed to say to Thane’s son, but it feels wrong to attend in person.”

“Ah. I see.”

Kaidan turned his attention to a sleek, elegant sofa on another turn-table: black and white leather like a Cerberus uniform.

“Are you here with Councilor Valern?”

“Aha, yes.” Col gesticulated with a single long finger, “After the attempt on his life, Valern insisted a Spectre be assigned to him whenever he leaves the Citadel tower. Much like you, however, I felt it would be out of place—disrespectful even—to cheapen Thane Krios’ memorial service with peripheral invitees. I assured the Councilor that between Commander Shepard, Archangel, and Justicar Samara in attendance, he would be safe to attend alone. Besides, I do my best work in the shadows.”

“You seem to be getting all the assignments lately.” Kaidan quirked an eyebrow.

“You mean with the Archive break-in? Yes, well. As head of the CSP, I take a lot of odd jobs…” He subtly eyed the bag of a passing turian tourist. “Time as well for… what is the expression… ‘passion projects.’” He crooked his long fingers around the expression.

“You mean the Council didn’t assign you to secure the archive and find Shepard’s clone?”

“The Council will not know about it until one of the three of us files our report.”

Kaidan’s eyes got wide.

“How did you know we were even in the archives?”

“I noted that new iridium vaults had been added to the archive’s permanent storage—the archives are under my jurisdiction. I had just arrived to investigate as the Normandy lifted off. It didn’t take much questioning to gain the whole perspective from there.” He stared intently at Kaidan, thin lips curved into the faintest of smiles.

“Huh. Lucky us, I suppose?” Kaidan couldn’t maintain eye contact and cleared his throat, “Did… you have any trouble over-writing the clone’s biometrics?”

“Ah. Well, I’ll simply say it proved an interesting challenge restoring Shepard’s original data. The palm print was fairly easy, the stride identification tags were more troublesome.” He crossed his arms behind his back once again, “More fun than I’ve had in ages.”

“Should I be worried that you were able to over-write another Spectre’s biometrics in what amounts to an amusing afternoon?” Kaidan’s chuckle was hollow.

“No more than I should be worried that the only two human Spectres have sole command over the fastest ship in the galaxy: a stealth-frigate built by Cerberus engineers and automated by an unshackled AI.” Col smiled, “We each have our own disturbing little specialties. That’s likely a part of what makes us such effective Special Tactics operatives, yes?” The expression in Col’s eyes had changed from his usual jovial self-assurance to one of calculated control.

“Hm.” Kaidan squinted once again, but a smile was playing at the corners of his mouth. “I think you’ve got me upstaged, Col. I might be aboard the Normandy, but I don’t have STG or N7 training. I’m just your standard Alliance soldier.” He gazed back at the furniture display, tilting his head at a spinning, bright orange sofa.

“Oh, I think that’s hardly true, Kaidan. You are a powerful biotic, an adaptive and able technician, a teacher of special tactics. In my prior line of work, we would view the lack of obvious special training on your record as a major asset—harder for people to discover your true abilities.”

“Too bad I’m not in espionage.” Kaidan’s tone was level, sarcastic.

“Indeed. It fascinates me that you continue to insist that you are merely an average soldier. You are the second of your species to ever be admitted as a Spectre.”

“We both know Udina would have done anything to get more humans into the program,” he rolled his eyes. “I was convenient.”

“We have not forgotten you were in Shepard’s party when you defeated Saren in the Council chamber, some of us have even watched the security playback where you encouraged Shepard to save the Destiny Ascension.” He spoke softly enough so only Kaidan could hear, but not so softly that anyone would notice a whisper in the room. “You did far more on that day than battle a proto-type Marauder. You displayed skill, judgement, and influence. These are the traits upon which this war will be won… and the next.”

“Hm.”

Col Vedirus tilted his head, but Kaidan’s gaze was lost behind the glass of the show-room window. When Col spoke next his voice was thickly serious.

“I wonder, Kaidan, if you insist you are an average soldier to make it easier to leave your duty behind. Special operatives don’t just embrace being a soldier as a career, it becomes a lifestyle, many find it impossible to escape. You would perhaps wish to spare yourself this life and the trap it becomes. It’s true, you have the sense of duty which would preclude you from ever really abandoning the Alliance, but perhaps you wonder if, say, Commander Shepard can even conceive of a life outside of the service.”

“No, I’m a career man, like my father.”

“But even your father retired to start a family. You are the outcome of that decision. Perhaps here, outside Thane Krios’ funeral, having witnessed the importance which a man—so committed to his work as Thane—placed on family in his final days has caused you to give this avenue fresh consideration?”

Kaidan turned to Col with a knowing smirk.

“Or maybe I’m baiting you to find out just how much you know about me?”

Col Vedirus blinked.

“Ah. Hmm. Ha… Does not mean I’m wrong?”

“Ha!” Kaidan snorted, “Nice recovery! I only hope you’re this thorough about all new Spectre recruits, or else I really will feel worried.”

“You have nothing to fear from me, Kaidan.” Col turned his attention to the spinning brown sofa, “Salarians on a mission prefer their objectives never meet them.”

“And that’s exactly why I wouldn’t expect an attack from one as talkative as you, Col.”

Kaidan laughed, and the two walked out of the tower to look out over the neon-decked Ward streets.

“I see your point, and you continue to prove mine about why you belong in our ranks. I believe in this case you are economizing your subterfuge by masking honest concerns.” Col gave a gurgling laugh.

“You’re mostly right. I wouldn’t have accepted the Council’s offer if I didn’t believe I deserved it. Still…” he sighed, “My dad taught me to be open, to stand up for what I believe in as loudly as I could. But I spent years learning to keep my thoughts to myself, not to let anybody know what I was thinking.”

“You… are saying there is a duality in the concerns you raised about your role as a soldier?”

“I’m saying it’s hard to know how I feel sometimes. I speak my mind. I’m long-winded and passionate when I feel something. And at the end of the day, I still feel like I’m hiding. Holding something back. I feel it, but I can’t always put my finger on it.”

“That sounds rather aggravating.”

“It is when you’re trying to explain yourself to people you really care about.”

“Shepard?”

“Well, yeah. Him too,” he shrugged. “But I was thinking more about my father.”

“Ah. My apologies. Fatherhood is not a prized station among salarians, and as a male I have no father. However, I have observed that in many humans, the relationship between father and son is often one of the more important relationships of a male’s life. Where is your father now?”

Kaidan cast a wary look at Col.

“You know the answer to that, don’t you?”

“Ah. Excuse me. The ruse… it becomes difficult to shed at times. You assume he is dead?”

“Yeah. I imagine he is.”

“I am sorry, Kaidan.” He placed a hand on Kaidan’s shoulder.

“Thank you. But it’s something I’ve… well. I haven’t exactly made peace with it yet.” He leaned forward on the railing, away from Col’s hand. “When this war is over… we’ll all have a lot of people to grieve, won’t we?”

“Yes.”

“As long as someone’s left to grieve, it’ll be worth it.”

“Perhaps so.”

Kaidan laughed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“War on, people to mourn, and would you believe I just decided which couch I’m going to buy Shepard for his new place?” He shook his head and leaned against the railing, staring back down the pedestrians on the strip. Col mirrored his posture.

“Ha! The mind is a brilliant thing, and has many defense mechanisms.”

“I suppose so. I’ve been thinking… about Shepard. All the people we’ve lost… the people he’s lost. The crew mates we lost on the first Normandy, and the ones he’s lost since then. People like Thane. Mordin Solus. Legion. I see their names on a memorial wall every time I get on the ship. It drives me crazy that I can’t be there for him while he’s mourning them.”

Col Vedirus’ posture stiffened almost imperceptibly.

“…you knew Mordin Solus?” His tone was still carefree and light—though perhaps with a more practiced affectation.

“No, I didn’t. That’s just the thing. Heard plenty about him from the rest of the crew… the people who were with Shepard when he fought the Collectors, anyway. Thane… Legion… I knew them, but not really. I didn’t serve with them, I didn’t risk certain death with them like Shepard did. That kind of bond…” he shrugged helplessly. “It’s hard to break.”

“From what I have heard, they died as heroes, all.” Col leaned against the railing as well, stiff arms propping him up, “Though Mordin’s reputation among my people is not so exemplary.”

“He’s a hero in my book.” Kaidan nodded. “If you would have told me three years ago that the genophage would be cured in my lifetime, I would’ve laughed in your face. One of the worst crimes I can imagine, holding a species up to the flame of extinction like that. One of worst things we’ve ever done.”

“Ah, you speak as if your species had a part in spreading the genophage,” Col turned, cold stare boring into Kaidan once again. “The deed was long done before human civilization introduced itself onto the galactic stage.”

“Sure. But when we joined the Council races, we accepted that act as valid. Now, I mean, the galaxy’s a big place, and… human morals aren’t for everyone… so maybe we were trying to be understanding, maybe we could make ourselves believe that there was no other way. But probably we didn’t think about it too hard at all, huh? We accepted responsibility for that… tacitly, at least. We weren’t part of the decision, but we’re part of the culture that grew out of that decision, we bear that burden now too, and the duty to change things.” He turned to Col, “Like our role: Council Spectres. Dirty business, dirty choices. People tolerate us… the Council governments tacitly accept the things we do, and all the hard choices we make.” He shrugged, rubbed his chin, “One of the first things Udina wants to do to court the Citadel Council? Get a human promoted to Spectre.”

“’Courted,’” Col sniffed. “Every new relationship begins with a recognition of mutual advantage, then a rush to accept and explain away the shadiest elements of the other.”

“…it sounds more cynical when you say it.”

“Most things do.”

“I had a point, where was I going with this?” Kaidan shook his head.

“Mordin Solus,” Col said, staring off into the distance off the boardwalk.

“That’s right,” Kaidan snapped. “So yeah, Mordin’s a hero in my eyes. And I hope someday they recognize that on Sur’Kesh.”

Col Vedirus stared at Kaidan for a long time before speaking, his voice quavered slightly.

“Salarians have long memories to compensate for our short lives, Kaidan. In time, Mordin Solus will be remembered as not only one of our greatest scientists, but as one of the most compassionate. I have no doubt.”

“Sounds like you have a personal stake in the matter.”

“Perhaps in a galaxy where it seems each of us is quickly being called to a heroic death, I am simply acknowledging an exemplar?”

“Ha! Well. Maybe.” Kaidan shrugged, “Still, I’m gonna hold onto my pet theory a little longer.”

Col smiled coldly, drew himself up to his full height.

“This reminds me, Kaidan. I don’t suppose Shepard has spoken to you about seeing the remains of his clone at my laboratory where I’ve stored them?”

“Uh, no he hasn’t.”

“Terribly unprofessional of me to even ask.” He tapped his fingers against the railing, “Also wondering, now that I recognize the signs of Cerberus genetic tampering, would Shepard like me to test him?”

“Test him? For what?”

“To see if he is a clone, to see if his genetic code has been altered in any way.”

“I… uh… don’t think he’s going to want that.” Kaidan clenched the railing.

“All the same, if you would pass along the offer.” Col crossed his arms, leaned his hip against the railing with a practiced ease, “Or if you would like to test him yourself, you could easily obtain a covert DNA sample…”

“What?” Kaidan’s eyebrows knit together.

“To be certain the man you are with is indeed… the man you hope he is.”

“Shepard is the same man he’s always been. I know him. I don’t need a test to tell me anything about ‘the man I’m with!’” he said, raising his voice.

“Of course.” Col replied mildly. “It would be a shame if some latent programming was activated in Shepard so close to your final confrontation with Cerberus.”

“There isn’t any latent programming.” Kaidan bristled. “Shepard is Shepard. I’m sure of it.”

“You are sure of it, or you have invested too much in a possible facsimile to want to be proven wrong at this stage?” Col raised an eyebrow.

“No.” Kaidan scoffed, “ _No._ I knew Shepard before he even disappeared. He’s the same man. I trust him. Completely.”

“So you are saying it doesn’t matter if this is the true Shepard or not, you believe he will accomplish his mission objectives?” Col turned away, as if the question were as casual as can be.

“No, dammit. That’s not what I said at all, and you’re just trying to piss me off!” Kaidan surged up to his full height and jabbed a finger into Col’s chest. “It _does_ matter! And he _is_ the real Shepard. I don’t even need to think about it.”

“Very well, Major,” he held up his hands in surrender, “I am simply saying that the option is available, should you or Shepard wish.”

“Thanks,” Kaidan replied coldly, “but I don’t think I’ll be taking advantage of that service.”

“I expected as much.” The thin smile returned, “My apologies, Spectre Alenko, as I said: wholly unprofessional of me even to ask.” They stood for some time watching the traffic fly overhead. The cold stiffness slowly left Kaidan’s posture, and he sighed.

“I think I may have lost my temper a bit there.”

“An understandable reaction to an… uncomfortable situation.”

“Just tell me this, Col: what interest is it to you if I’m ‘with’ the man I think I’m with or not?”

“That much should be obvious, Major,” Col said in a low voice, “We all rely on Shepard in the coming confrontation, myself included. In spite of this, none have a greater personal investment in the person and the legend of Benjamin Shepard than you,” he turned his stare on Kaidan, a deep cunning behind his eyes, “And I am a romantic.”

Kaidan stared.

“Bullshit.”

Col shook his head slowly, “Not entirely bullshit, alas: You know my hobbies.”

“I suppose,” Kaidan smirked, “But I’m not going to let the fact that you got under my skin with that little performance distract me from the fact that you’re angling at something.”

“We each have our special skills,” Col smiled, and Kaidan could only shake his head. “And thank you for speaking about your father, Kaidan. In my line of work, it is a very different thing to know someone’s history and to hear them talk about it. I hope you find the peace you seek in regards to your father.”

They chatted there for a little while longer, Col using his espionage skills like a party trick to make Kaidan laugh at what secrets he could find out about passers-by on the boardwalk. They arranged to retry their planned Spectre charity Arena bout, and when Commander Bailey exited on the ground floor of Tiberius Towers, they agreed the memorial must be wrapping up.

Kaidan took a circuit around the boardwalk immediately outside the tower, idly tried to cheer up an elcor Shakespearean actor, and finally made his way back when he saw Kolyat leaving with councilor Valern, the slightest shimmer in the air behind them as Col Vedirus followed invisibly. He stopped in at the furniture kiosk and arranged the delivery of several new sofas, and paused at the elevator to open an extranet bookseller on his omni-tool.

 _World of Wonders_ , the last book in the Deptford Trilogy—his father’s favorite novel—downloaded to his digital bookshelf.

The apartment was warm, quiet. The fireplace was still lit, and a picture of Thane sat on the piano near a vase of orchids. The soft voice sounding from Shepard’s bedroom drew Kaidan quietly up the stairs. It was Thane’s voice:

_“I still don’t want to die in a hospital, but it’s where the doctors are… and Kolyat. I love him. That means I must trust him. Goodbye, Shepard. Let me say that now, in case I cannot later.”_

“Shepard?”

Shepard stood in the middle of the room, eyes fixed on the television screen as the image of Thane flicked back to darkness.

“Kaidan. Hey.” He slid an arm around Kaidan’s shoulder, Kaidan putting his around Shepard’s waist. “Everyone finally cleared out. Kolyat found these messages Thane had tried to send me… The Alliance must’ve blocked them.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt. I can come back later.”

“No. No, that was the last one.” Shepard continued to stare at the blank screen, “He had been trying to communicate the whole time. All those months under house arrest… I could’ve…” Shepard closed his eyes and rested his head on Kaidan’s shoulder.

“How was the funeral?” Kaidan spoke softly, rubbing Shepard’s back. “Or… the memorial service, I suppose.”

“It was nice. I wish you would’ve come.”

“I didn’t really belong there, Shepard.”

“You and Thane spoke a lot while you were here.” Shepard sighed, “You were a friend for him at the end when he didn’t think he had many.”

“…maybe. But no one was there to remember the way he was in the hospital when I knew him. Some days he was helping me out of bed, some days I was catching him when he fell. That memorial service needed to be a reminder of all the people that saw him in his prime.”

“You’re wrong. You heard the end of that message. He was in that hospital because he loved Kolyat. That was the Thane people need to remember most.” Shepard’s voice dropped to a whisper, “The way he wanted to be remembered…”

“Hm. I suppose.” Kaidan ran a hand through his hair, “Sounds crazy, but… I’m glad he got one last mission before he went.”

“Me too.”

“I spent a lot of time thinking about it when I was in Huerta. I don’t want to die in a hospital either.” Kaidan said, leaning his head against Shepard’s.

Shepard raised his head and searched Kaidan’s eyes, “Kaidan, you know that if you were ever hurt… if you were dying… I would do everything in my power to help you.”

Kaidan’s brow knitted together when he saw the expression on Shepard’s face.

“Yeah, of course I do, Ben.”

“Because… if it meant… being in a hospital… like Thane…”

“Would I agree to go?” Kaidan asked, his expression softening, “For you, Shepard. Anything. Would you for me?”

“Already died once.” Shepard shrugged.

“No bull, Shepard. This really has you worried, I can tell.”

“Yeah, I would. I don’t want to die in a hospital any more than you do. But, I made a promise I would live for you, and I meant it. Just…” He looked away “I’m not strong like you, Kaidan. Dealing with loss... I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”

“Ben, you’re the strongest man I know. You’ve lost a lot of people. You helped _me_ get over Ash’s death.”

“It’s not the same. I’ve spent my life just surviving. At Akuze, I decided that when someone goes, it’s their time. Every life is precious, but fragile. I don’t get too close to people. I don’t know how to read them the way you do, and I can’t… empathize with them. When they die, I’m sad, I’m… diminished. But I understand, I know what needs to happen next. I’ve never had to deal with losing someone… someone I…” He swallowed, “I don’t know what happens if you’re gone.”

Kaidan and Shepard held one another silently while their anxious breathing slowed, heartbeats falling back into line, “I’m with you till the end, Ben. Whatever that takes. If that means we go up against Harbinger, just us two, that’s what it means. If that means I wither away in a hospital, that’s what it means. I… trust you Shepard.”

“I hate this war.” The words seethed out of Shepard, barely more than a whisper, “People shouldn’t have to talk about these kinds of things. Shouldn’t have to always be planning for what happens when they die.”

“Part of being a soldier, I guess.”

“Part of being on the brink of extinction,” he spat.

“Yeah… that too.” Kaidan sighed, “I guess it’s the uncomfortable part about the relationship you explain away…”

“Hmm?”

“Nothing,” he tried to smile, “Just something I was talking with… a friend about.”

Shepard shifted, shoulder settling with a deep sigh. He kissed Kaidan on the lips.

“It was good to have the memorial. We haven’t really had a chance to mourn… anyone really. Seeing Garrus and Joker and Samara there, felt like we could’ve just kept listing names after Thane’s. Kept talking all night.”

“Watching Kolyat deal with his father’s death, well, it made me think about… my dad.”

Shepard squeezed his hand, “I’m sorry, I didn’t even think about how much this would remind you about him. Is that why you didn’t come?”

“Uh huh. I know he’s technically missing in action but… he’s dead. Or worse. Either way, he’s not gonna get a service like this.”

“Tell me about him.”

“Ha. He was a tough old son-of-a-bitch. Always looking at the ships leaving orbit like he wished he was on ‘em. But he gave everything to me and mom. He really loved us. Loved me. Helped make me the man I turned into.”

“He was proud of you.”

“Yeah. Eventually. I’ve been thinking about him a lot the past couple days, actually. I, uh… there was this book series he started reading when I was still a kid. I hadn’t thought about it forever.” He guided Shepard over to the bed and they flopped down on it, Shepard scooching up to rest on his side while Kaidan continued. “We went on a vacation, little bed and breakfast on the north side of Reindeer Lake. Got there in the middle of fishing season, there was nothing to do. My dad was so bored.” Kaidan chuckled, “He started reading this book series, real old books. Calmed him down. Used to read the whole trilogy every summer after that. I told him I was going to read it sometime, but I only read the first two.”

“Not your thing?”

“I mean. At the time they were alright. Not my thing. I just started reading them a while ago, though. Just finished the second one yesterday. It’s always bothered me I never read the third book. That was dad’s favorite. I… uh… I just bought it a couple minutes ago actually… but I always thought,” Kaidan’s breathing had become heavy, “Thought I’d get to talk to him about it before he was gone. He liked to talk about the books he was reading and so do I but just…” Kaidan took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and immediately his composure returned, though the effort left him looking drained.

“You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about, Kaidan.” Shepard said, holding Kaidan’s face between his palms, eyes searching, “Don’t be afraid to grieve. You’re not fighting a war right now. It’s just you and me. Okay?”

“I know, I just… don’t want to focus on that yet.”

“It’s not going to go away on its own.”

“Neither are the Reapers.” Kaidan said, an edge in his voice, “And I’d rather focus on the people we can save. The people dying right now. The people waiting for us.”

“The Reapers win if they devour us from inside. You’re human. _We’re_ only human. Sometimes that means we need to let ourselves be a little selfish. Need to allow ourselves to feel grief.” He ran his fingers up Kaidan’s bare arm.

“You’re right. I know, and I will, Ben. In my own way… just… I’m glad you’re here. I wouldn’t be able to hold it together without you here.”

“I wouldn’t be able to do this if it weren’t for you.”

Kaidan turned his head, just enough so that his nose was practically touching Ben’s.

“Don’t leave me again, okay?”

“Never.”

“Last service I was at was yours.” Kaidan couldn’t meet Shepard’s eye, “You say I’m strong, but that night we all got together, you know, just your friends. Just the people that really… knew you. I was pretty messed up, Shepard. More than I let on.” He shifted his weight, drawn into Shepard’s chest.

“I don’t know that I’m as strong as you say, Shepard. Maybe I didn’t know yet… but no. I think I felt it somewhere. I knew how I felt about you, Ben. And knowing I was never going to see you again. Never going to be able to tell you all the things I wanted to tell you. Never get to… to hold you,” he lightly touched Shepard’s cheek, “touch your face like this… It tore me up. And there wasn’t any war to take my mind off it.”

“I’m not going to leave you again.”

“I hope not, Shepard. But I’ll be damned if I make you promise that.” Kaidan said. Shepard opened his mouth to interject, but Kaidan stopped him. “Ben, I don’t always say everything I’m thinking; Lord knows I try. But maybe it’s because I don’t know what I feel sometimes, or I don’t trust myself to get it across. I just need you to know that I’ve meant everything I’ve said since we’ve been together. And you mean more to me than anyone. Okay?”

“Okay.” Shepard’s smile was practically giddy as pulled Kaidan into a tight embrace. 

They stood for a long time like that, two Spectres. The only two human Spectres in the galaxy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Citadel DLC: Morning sexy times, James and Steve stop in to watch the biotiball game.


	32. The Difference between Choice and Sin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Citadel DLC - A little morning fluff. Later, Vega and Cortez are interrupted in leaving after their Biotiball game by a jovially smashed Kaidan. Drinks, science, and personal recollections follow.

The smell of coffee was wafting up from the kitchen when Shepard awoke in the dark. The moment his feet touched the floor, the room illuminated: a pale orange like sunrise, slowly building in intensity. He sniffed the air and smiled, rubbed the gooseflesh on his chest and arms, popping his knees high and wincing from the hip.

The pain staggered him back to sit on the bed, but the shivering seemed to stop. Another whiff of the air had him up again, putting on a pair of black briefs that had been tossed into the corner the night before.

Bright lights in the living room made him squint, and the smell of coffee eventually brought him down to the kitchen. Kaidan, dressed in his underwear and Shepard’s hoodie, was reading a data-pad on the counter, pouring himself a cup.

“Morning.” Shepard scratched his bare chest, taking in the scene with a smile. The apartment was quiet, nothing but the faint trickle of the water element and the whisper of the passing cars. The effect seemed to make the two speak more quietly: soldiers used to talking over the hum of a drive core and rattling bulkheads. Even so, Shepard seemed to wince at the volume of his own voice.

“Hey, there you are.” Kaidan smiled, laying aside his data-pad to take Shepard by the hips, kissing him softly.

“You didn’t wake me up,” Shepard said, a grin playing at the corner of his mouth.

“Sure I did. I just waited three extra hours and,” he placed a steaming mug in Shepard’s hands, “I did it with coffee.”

“Mm. Thanks.” He took a sip and flinched from the scalding coffee, eyes on Kaidan when he blew across the lip of the mug. “You disabled the auto-sunrise, didn’t you? You would never let me get away with something like that.”

“You said you wanted to sleep more on shore leave, and I’m gonna make sure you do.”

“This morning there are a lot of other things I’d like to be doing.” He slid his free hand up under Kaidan’s sweatshirt. He laughed and kissed Shepard again, using Ben’s hips to turn him around.

“I got you something.” He gestured to the sofas around the room. Where formerly there had been straight-back, austere, synthetic sofas, now there were plush chocolate brown couches.

“You… replaced all the couches?” He blinked, leaned back into Kaidan’s body.

“Mhm. Cozy and casual.” He pushed Shepard forward toward the sofa when he tried to snake his hand up the outside of Kaidan’s thigh. “Thought these seemed more your style; placed the order yesterday, replaced today. Elcor crew: very efficient, very quiet.”

“First a new shotgun, now new couches?”

“I like to spoil my lover,” Kaidan smirked. Shepard ran a hand over the back of the sofa.

“These are great, Kaidan! The other ones were pretty uncomfortable.”

“I know. But these are much…” he grabbed Shepard’s coffee mug biotically and pushed him onto the sofa, “… _much_ softer.”

The mug gently floated onto the coffee table, rattling as Kaidan lost his concentration when Shepard pressed a kiss into his pulse. Kaidan wasted no time in pushing Shepard back down, crawling on top and leaving him squirming for more leverage beneath Kaidan’s kisses.

Shepard bit Kaidan’s bottom lip and grinned.

“So, you were in here with the delivery men in just your underwear?”

“No,” He pinned Shepard’s hands above his head, “I _did_ have pants on. But once the couches were replaced I took ‘em off,” he nipped Shepard chin, “Because we’re on shore leave.”

Shepard bucked beneath his weight when Kaidan kissed him again, parting his lips sensually. They spent a long time leisurely making out on the new sofa, Shepard trying to get Kaidan out of his sweatshirt and Kaidan always pulling it back around himself.

Kaidan raised himself up on his elbows, breathless, but Shepard surged up for another kiss anyway, sending them both tumbling to the floor and banging into the coffee table. Kaidan laughed, letting Shepard pull him in again, pressing his leg between Kaidan’s. They climbed back up onto the sofa, stumbling over each other with kisses and touches until Shepard lay on top of Kaidan on the couch, holding his face in his hands.

“Hang on… hang on. Just… sit there like that for a minute.”

Kaidan leaned back into the cushions and looked up, smiling. Shepard stared into his eye. He quirked an eyebrow.

“What’re you doing, Ben?”

“Shh. Just let me look at you a minute.” Shepard’s smile flickered in the firelight. He touched Kaidan’s face with an absolute tenderness: tracing his cheekbones, the smooth skin beneath his eyes—no longer dark from sleepless nights, traced his thumb with the grain of stubble of his jaw, pausing only to receive a kiss against his palms when he touched Kaidan’s lips with trembling fingers. Hard-coding new data.

 “Guess… we haven’t really had a lot of time to just… _be_ together, have we?”

“No. Not nearly time enough.” Shepard ran his fingers over Kaidan’s forehead, brushing a gray lock of hair back into place behind Kaidan’s ear. “This is perfect. You’re perfect. I want to remember this. Kaidan…”

“I didn’t know you could be so corny, _Shepard_ ,” Kaidan grinned.

“Stick around…” Shepard snickered, warm breath against his ear. “I’m learning…”

When he leaned in, Kaidan’s arms enveloped him, they kissed with teeth-clattering force and practically bit each other’s lips trying to stifle their laughter.

“Heh.” Kaidan guffawed, Shepard rolled into his chest, sputtering laughter, “I ruined our perfect moment!”

“Are you kidding?” Ben nuzzled against the softness of the sweatshirt. “I get to lay on a cozy couch in a brand new apartment, making out with my boyfriend like we’re 16 and the only problem is that we’re _too_ eager to kiss each other? Doesn’t sound like a problem. I bet we can make some more perfect moments.”

“I guess no one ever said we only get one.” Kaidan kissed the bridge of Shepard’s nose, but Ben had taken to gazing into his eyes again.

“You are… perfect, Kaidan. This is exactly what I want…” he breathed, meeting Kaidan’s eye with a sheepish expression.

“Shepard, you keep sweet talking me like this and I might have trouble keeping my image of you as an intimidating military commander.”

“Long as you don’t tell the Reapers.” Shepard parted Kaidan’s legs and settled his body between, resting his head on Kaidan’s chest.

“As if I’d ever share any of that sweet talk.” He lifted his body and slid himself underneath Shepard’s weight. “So this is what normal people get to do every day, huh?”

“Wouldn’t know, but I’ve heard from a reliable source,” Shepard grinned.

“I didn’t know you were acquainted with any normal people.”

“Well, I… umm,” Shepard sighed and nuzzled into Kaidan’s neck. “…you know I’m no good at… this sort of thing.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“Talking about how I feel, making you feel… umm. Special. I want to be… to be good at that.” He squirmed when Kaidan kissed his burning ears.

“Ben, when I met you, it was like talking to a character from a war vid. You can’t see how far you’ve come, but I can. And I like it. I _really_ like it!” he replied. “And _I_ can be plenty corny too…” Shepard smiled wryly and kissed Kaidan again, pulling at the waistband of his briefs until Kaidan stopped him. “Mm. We’re not having sex on the new couch, Shepard.” He smiled, “You’re having that party in a couple days. Plus I thought Steve and James were coming over tonight?”

Shepard frowned in mock disappointment.

“But this couch is so nice.” He slowly unzipped the sweatshirt, following the zipper with a line of kisses, “No one has to know.”

Kaidan groaned.

“Dark couch…”

“But this is perfect… We have a fireplace…” Shepard, heedless, mumbled into his navel, “I don’t even have to close the blinds…”

“Ben,” Kaidan’s breath hitched when Ben kissed the hollow of his hip, “we can go upstairs…”

Shepard gingerly pulled Kaidan’s growing hardness out of the waist-band of his boxer-briefs.

“Or we could have some fun right here…” he kissed Kaidan’s leg, letting his morning stubble gently rub the inside of his thighs, “No headaches, no interruptions, no Reapers, no aches.” Every item in his list was punctuated with a kiss up Kaidan’s entire length, before Shepard took the whole head into his mouth.

“Aren’t you—“ he gasped as Shepard’s mouth closed around him, “Cold or something?”

Shepard rose up, letting his tongue laze slowly up Kaidan’s length.

“I know a way to stay warm.”

Kaidan grunted again.

“Ugh. Alright, Ben. But if you keep playing me like this, I can’t be responsible for staining your new couch.”

Shepard smirked wryly, fully pulling off Kaidan’s underwear.

“I’m not gonna let anything get onto the couch…”

++

Striding back into Shepard’s apartment later that night, Kaidan almost ran headlong into Steve Cortez, followed shortly by James Vega.

“Oh! Major, sorry.” Cortez stepped aside, motioning Kaidan in.

“ _Hola,_ Major,” James gave a little wave and crossed his arms, balancing his posture on one leg.

“Hey guys, heading out already?” Kaidan clapped Cortez and Vega on the shoulder and pulled them with him back into the apartment. “Tell me you at least got something to drink before you go?”

Cortez glanced quickly between Kaidan and Shepard.

“Uh, actually, the biotiball game just ended. We were heading out.”

“Umm,” said Vega, watching Steve’s expression, “Besides, we had plenty o’ _cervezas._ ”

“Eh, Shepard’s got stronger than beer in that bar,” Kaidan balked, voice a little too loud, “Have a seat!”

Shepard grinned at his boyfriend and Kaidan ushered the two men, shuffling, back towards the bar. Steve and James sat back in their spots on the couch, still a little wide-eyed.

“Hey Kaidan,” he leaned in to give Kaidan a peck on the lips. “You’re in a good mood.”

“Drinks with Wrex’ll do that to you.” Kaidan walked behind the bar and started opening a few cabinets, setting up glasses on the counter. “That man sure can talk. Phew!”

“Wouldn’t have thought he’d have much time to hang out. He was talking about all the hot krogan females who wanted to jump his royal scepter when we were doing the archive job,” James said.

 “Well, he’d never admit it to me,” he waved Shepard away, cobbled together and assortment of liquor bottles from the lower cabinets, “but I think he’s getting a little tired of the attention.”

“Must be rough,” James scoffed, scooting over to allow Shepard to take a seat at the end of the couch. “Worse problems to have, right now.”

“I hope _that_ story gets passed on to future generations,” Steve laughed, making room for Shepard.

“I thought he seemed like he was dragging his feet on this ‘diplomatic mission,’” Shepard added. “Wonder if he’s using the opportunity to take a break from his… carnal duties for a little while.”

“There’s no escape,” Kaidan guffawed, “Apparently, some Krogan women on the Citadel jumped him in an elevator the other day. He only got out of it because they hadn’t actually been back to Tuchanka since the genophage cure. Didn’t realize they needed to breathe homeworld air before they’d be cured.” Kaidan looked around at his assemblage of bottles and glasses, “Say, what does everyone want to drink? I don’t know how to make much, but what I can make… I can make _real_ well. As long as nobody wants a Quad Kicker. Been drinking that crap all night.”

“You should take that as a compliment,” Shepard said “Wrex’s motto: ‘When you’ve got a quad, you drink a Quad Kicker’.” He smiled wryly past Vega and Cortez and Kaidan returned the grin.

“Umm,” Cortez spoke up when Vega cast him a sidelong look, “What’s your specialty?”

“A Full Biotic Kick.”

“Gah.” Shepard frowned, “That’s morbid.”

“Sounds good to me…” Vega supplied

“Yeah. I’ll try one.”

“Okay then, four Full Biotic Kicks!” Kaidan lined up his glasses.

“You sure you should be drinking more, Major? You seem…”

“Elevated.” Steve finished.

“Nah!” Kaidan filled the last of the glasses, and balanced them against one another as he carried them to the people sitting on the couch. “Biotic metabolism, most of the rum’s outta my system,” he slurred.

Shepard snorted loudly.

“Kaidan, lemme move…” Steve began to stand up, freeing up the spot on the couch closest to Shepard.

“Psh! You’re fine, Steve.” Kaidan handed Shepard his drink and pulled one of recliners away from the wall, collapsing into it “What should we drink to?”

“How about we drink to the Seattle Sorcerers?” Steve smirked.

“Naw, screw that!” James shook his head, “Here’s to smokin’ out Cerberus!”

“And kicking the Reapers’ ass!” Kaidan raised his glass.

“Here’s to shore leave, much needed, well deserved.” Shepard added, and the men took a drink.

“Mmm.” Steve stared down into the amber liquid in his glass. ”That’ a lot smoother than I was expecting, actually.”

“Why thank you.” Kaidan smiled, licking a halo of ginger-beer off his upper lip.

“I could’ve sworn you were a neat whiskey kind of guy,” Shepard said before taking another sip.

“Eh, sure. But I’ve been ingesting curry powder all night, I need something that’s not gonna burn my throat any more than it already has. Guh. Quad Kickers… Nothing like a Full Biotic Kick to restore your faith in bourbon after bar-hopping with a krogan.”

“Where’d you guys end up going?” Shepard asked.

“Started at Chora’s Den. ‘Just like old times’.” Kaidan cast Shepard a sidelong look.

“Oh man, they opened Chora’s Den again? That place is dirty as hell, but those girls can _dance_ , this one time a buddy o’mine bought me a lap dance—“ Vega stopped abruptly seeing the awkward way Steve had become enraptured by the shape of his glass. He glanced at the moonstruck look Shepard and Kaidan were giving each other. “Uhh. I’m sure you were just there for the drinks, though, Major.”

“Wrex always loved a little dancing to go with his drinking.” Shepard laughed, “Did he spring for a lapdance?”

“No. He remembered I don’t really go for all that.” He quirked an eyebrow, “Besides, he was so terrified he was leading me astray from you we didn’t stay long.”

“How thoughtful of him,” Shepard grinned mischievously.

“Ha! That would never happen!” James scoffed.

“Uh, thanks James.” Kaidan sipped at his cocktail. “I guess.”

“Who knew you had such an investment in Kaidan’s fidelity, Mr. Vega.”

“Nah. Well, yeah. I mean, it’s not like those dancers are even tempting to you anyway… uhh... Major. Because…” James gestured limply in Kaidan’s direction, the Major fixing him with a bemused expression, “But I mean, if even salarians get turned on by the asari… then even… umm…” He rubbed a hand across his brow. “Aww hell, you know what I’m gettin’ at!”

Shepard’s tone was level, but his eyes betrayed that he was holding back his laughter.

“You’ve come this far, James. Spit it out.”

“Why don’t you down that drink, James. It’ll make it easier,” Kaidan teased, James obliged.

“I guess I never thought about it. Do you guys think the asari are… y’know… attractive?” He glanced around the room nervously. Steve bellowed a laugh. “Okay, okay. You had your laugh. But, y’know, this could be _important_. For science.”

“Alright men, let’s answer the lieutenant’s question,” Shepard replied with theatrical stoicism. “It’s for science.”

“No. Never found the asari attractive.” Steve smiled and sipped his drink.

“Nope,” Shepard said.

“I mean, they sort of just look like women, right?” Steve returned, Shepard shrugged.

“But I thought they might have some kind of… hypnosis thing, y’know? Where everyone saw an ideal… sexy… thing. They look like a blue lady to me, but turians say they look kinda turian…? Salarians… right? C’mon! Right?” James said, looking around the room.

“I don’t mean to sound speciesist or anything,” Steve shrugged, “But… developed breasts, low center of gravity, high-timbre voice? Sure they look pretty human to me, but they look like a woman. Not my type.”

“…not even curious?” James leaned in.

“By the time they were passing around asari porn in high school, I had made up my mind where my interests lay. Now if you’re asking if I had an experimentation phase, I’m more than happy to share if you are, Mr. Vega.”

“Well, Kaidan. Let’s round out James’ survey. Do _you_ find the asari attractive?” Shepard gave Kaidan a knowing smirk, “Or is it only ‘art appreciation?’”

“You ass.” He grinned at Shepard over the lip of his glass.

“Did you just call your CO an ass, Kaidan?” Shepard remarked mischievously.

“No, I called my boyfriend an ass,” The two had leaned in close over the arms of their respective seat. James loudly slurped from his empty glass and Steve stared impassively at the wall, his knee bouncing slightly on the couch. Kaidan tried to suppress a smile and reclined back into his chair, “I wouldn’t say I find any race attractive by default. But sure, I’ve found… many asari to be easy on the eyes.”

“Aha! So how do they look to you?” James said, righting his posture.

“…mostly like Steve says. Blue women. Tendrilly hair.”

“But do you… y’know… are you attracted to human women?”

“Sure.”

“Aww damn.” James fell back, resigned, into the sofa. “There goes my theory.”

“But it’s tough to get distracted by a striptease when I know I’ve got this guy back home,” Kaidan slurred into his liquor.

“Look who’s corny now,” Shepard whispered across the gap to Kaidan.

James turned back to Steve.

“Wait, people were ‘passing around’ asari porn at your high school?”

“Yeah.” Steve peeled his eyes away from Kaidan and Shepard, “I figured that happened everywhere?”

“I was at BAaT. No extranet access.”

“Never went to high school.” Shepard shrugged.

“Yeah, Esteban. I was more interested in the _actual_ girls when I was in high school. I dunno what porn they were passing around.”

“Well huh. Aren’t we a diverse group?” Steve said, quirking an eyebrow.

“So where the hell did you go to school where they didn’t have extranet access?” James asked Kaidan.

“Well, BAaT wasn’t really a school. It was on Jump Zero.”

“You _lived_ on Jump Zero?” Steve leaned in.

“Yeah.”

“Remember when they used to show it in those Alliance recruitment vids in school?” Steve asked around the room, “I used to dream of visiting Gagarin Station! I mean, now that I’ve seen the Citadel it doesn’t seem so impressive. But back then… wow.”

“Trust me,” Kaidan’s smile turned lopsided, “The vids make it look a lot nicer than it was.”

“So that had to be a government thing, right? Guess you went right into the service after that, huh?”

“No, actually. I joined later.”

“How about you, Shepard?” James asked Shepard.

“Joined on my eighteenth birthday.” Shepard wiped a spilled sip of liquor off his chin. “Hadn’t seen any vids for it, though.”

“Did you always know you wanted to be a soldier?” Steve asked.

“No. I didn’t exactly join on impulse, but I sure hadn’t thought about it as long as I probably should have. I learned to think about things a bit harder on Arcturus.”

“How about you, Major?”

“Sure. I mean, as a kid, I always expected I would end up as a soldier, just like my dad. Took a while to make it _my_ dream, not just what I expected I’d be doing.”

“I always knew I wanted to be a soldier,” James said “I saw the vids, sure, like everyone did. But I felt like I really _got_ ‘em, you know? Like, they were trying to wrangle you into joining, but they didn’t need to for me. After the Blitz… Alliance marines were the best of the best, and I knew I wanted to be the best. My _tio_ finally gave me the push.”

“You give up a lot too, joining up. I enlisted for the tuition benefits, ended up going career before the end of my first year. Pilot school… I had never gotten such a high off of anything like I got flying that first Trident.” Steve said “But, at the same time, I knew I wouldn’t really get to see my family much anymore. I’d be flying risky missions. All felt worth it. I didn’t think I’d ever get to have a family or anything, then I met Robert…” He trailed off and a heavy silence set over the room.

“You showed you don’t have to give up everything,” Shepard said, offering up a confident smile for Steve.

“Yeah,” Steve looked up, “I guess so. We made it work, and it was great. Guess you don’t have to sacrifice everything. I’m glad you guys have got each other in all this.”

Kaidan smiled, but Shepard responded simply.

“Thanks, Steve.”

Vega clapped Steve on the back.

“Well said, Esteban. Now, I think we’ve played fifth wheel here long enough. Whaddaya say we hit up Purgatory before turnin’ in? See about a little action, eh? I’ll be your wingman.” The two stood up.

“I think I need a wingman who isn’t going to be distracting men from talking to me every time he flexes his pecs.” They made for the exit waving.

“Enjoy your evening, my friends.” James called back.

++

A half-hour later, Kaidan lay in bed, propped against the headboard reading off a data-pad.

“I’m telling you, Shepard. They seem so young.”

“Vega and Cortez?” Shepard asked, brushing his teeth in the bathroom, “Yeah, I suppose they do.”

“They’re _not_ that young though, right?”

“Less than five years younger than me.” Shepard spat his toothpaste into the sink.

“And it isn’t like they haven’t seen some crazy stuff, either,” he pulled another pillow behind his back, took a deep breath as he settled against it. “James had Fehl Prime, Steve lost his husband.”

“You’ve seen  Eden Prime,” Shepard switched off the light in the bathroom, padded into the bedroom to remove his shirt. “Noveria, Feros, Illos, Alchera, the Citadel—twice now, Horizon...”

“Skyllian Blitz, Akuze… Eden Prime…” Kaidan nodded his head back at Shepard and sighed. “Is it just a numbers game?”

Shepard shrugged, stripped down to his boxers. He was already shivering.

“I think it’s what you’re forced to do, _what_ happens. Not how much.”

“In that case… we really are getting old, aren’t we?”

Shepard crawled up the bed and ran his fingers through Kaidan’s graying hair.

“Maybe, but we wear it well.”

“Heh.” He kissed Shepard’s palm and returned to his reading until Shepard threw back the covers and slid into the bed, resting his head on Kaidan’s chest and grabbing Kaidan’s arms to wrap around him. “Agh! You’re like a cat sometimes Shepard!”

“I just know where I want to be.”

“Very nice.” He rolled his eyes, “You want me to turn off the light?”

“It’s okay. I just want to lie here for a bit. Long as you’re not working.”

“No, just reading. Been getting a lot of that done lately. Feels good.” He tapped the side of his data-pad thoughtfully, “You like to read, Shepard?”

“Hm.” Eyes closed, Shepard frowned, “Not really. Not fiction, at least. Everything I read was always for survival, I suppose. I guess I never built up the habit for pleasure reading.”

“I used to read all those old space adventure books when I was a kid.” He stroked a hand down Shepard’s chest. “The space operas were great, for a while I had a soft spot for those relativity dramas, what was that one… where the main character keeps racing from system to system and he’s always too late for some big battle? Do you remember that one?”

“Didn’t have a lot of books growing up…” Shepard shivered crossed his arms across his chest.

“Yeah yeah yeah.” Kaidan pulled the blanket tighter around Shepard, tucking it under his shoulders. “But they made that vid of it… I woulda been about 16? What did they call it… _Race Against Time-space_!”

“…didn’t watch a lot of vids back then, either, to be honest. Would’ve been nice, though.”

“While I was on Omega and Illium, human books were pretty hard to get a hold of.” He leaned over to tuck the blanket under Shepard’s hips. “Batarian capture chronicles always turned my stomach, and I remember I read the entire _Duty and the Sword_ cycle. Even the turians I knew hadn’t read more than the first 17 volumes. Translation was terrible.”

“That’s… brave of you.” He turned his head nuzzling into the rise and fall of Kaidan’s chest.

“When I joined up with the Alliance… well. Reading was all I really did. Didn’t want to interact too much with the other recruits. They all seemed a lot younger than me, too.”

“Yeah, I was actually thinking about how you enlisted when we were talking about your dad last night, and again today with Vega and Cortez.”

“Hmm. Me too. Picturing you as a scrappy 18 year old joining up.” He rubbed Shepard’s arm. “But you said no fiction, did you read other stuff?”

“After bootcamp I knew I wanted to go to the Academy, but I had no education at all. I could read, sure, but I didn’t know much about anything. No one could beat me in a fight. Wasn’t good enough for me.” Shepard muttered sleepily, “I started reading everything I could about galactic history, tactics, military tech. A lot of big words I had never seen before. Didn’t understand most of it. But it was a start. Also helped me pass the entrance exams. I was no high score there, but my combat skills were enough to make them ignore that I’m a pretty dim on math, history, science.”

“But no pleasure reading, huh?”

“No. I used to see a lot of vids on Arcturus, I guess.” He returned the smile that was forming on Kaidan’s face, “I like getting wrapped up in a story. It’s been years since I’ve seen a vid.”

“We do have a date night coming up…”

“Hmm.” Shepard yawned, “Maybe.”

“And… I don’t think your dim, Shepard.”

“I know what I know,” he shrugged. “I learned a lot, I kept reading technical manuals, theory books, journals. To tell you the truth, everyone thought I was a bookworm in N7. I didn’t talk much. I didn’t want anybody to figure out that I almost never understood what I was reading.”

 “I know the feeling. I was so happy to have human stuff to read again, I let it hide the fact that it was helping me avoid the other cadets. My instructors knew I was a biotic, an L2. Saw me as a liability to their unit. They knew I didn’t want any further biotic training; half of them resented me because they saw that as lazy, the other half hated me because they thought it meant I was too good for their training.”

“You said it made your dad proud when you enlisted, _eventually._ ”

“Yeah. Well.” Kaidan chuckled, “When I first came back to Earth, I joined up right away. The first letter I wrote my parents in two years… I sent it from the transport to boot camp. Dad was furious. You wouldn’t have known it from his message, very calm, very level, but there was real old-soldier rage under that calm face. He thought this was just more of me not knowing what I wanted. I had filled them in a little bit on what I’d been doing—no specifics—so they knew I’d been drifting. I’ll never forget what dad said: ‘I know you need to find yourself, son. But I’ll be damned if any son of mine is going to be the weak link of the Alliance navy because he’s outta money and is looking for a free meal ticket.’”

“Ouch!”

“Yeah. In the end I was lucky he didn’t pull strings with some of his old contacts to have me shipped out and sent back to Vancouver. Didn’t support me, but didn’t stop me either. I knew I deserved it. I had run out on my parents.”

“You were traumatized after Vyrnnus,” Shepard’s brow furrowed, legs roiling under the covers.

“Don’t get me wrong, I still believe I did the right thing. But… y’know… even the right thing can have bad consequences sometimes. I wrote to my parents all the time, never told them too much about where I’d been, never told them about all the bull I was getting because of my implant. All my dad could see was that I didn’t seem to be advancing as fast as everyone else. Eventually they heard about all the commendations I’d been getting, and my dad knew enough about the military to put two and two together—all those commendations and no promotions? It was because of my implant, and he knew it. Whenever I visited after that, we’d sit on the balcony with a beer and he’d tell me that he was proud of me.”

“You proved yourself. To your father, to everybody.”

“Wasn’t easy though. Worked so hard, sometimes reading was the only time I took for myself at all. Makes me feel lonely, but in a good way. Does that make sense?”

“Not… yet…?”

“Getting wrapped up in a story, like you said. Helps me figure out the way the world could be. Helps me think about my place in the world.”

“Yeah,” Shepard mused. “That and your father.”

“Mhm. Old soldier sure loved the Alliance. But he loved me more.” He made a low ‘hmph’ in the back of his throat, “Y’know, it’s funny to think back about my dad: he raised me while Mom worked, but even still he felt so distant, sometimes.”

“I remember Ann Bryson saying the same thing about her father.”

“Maybe that’s just a thing with fathers? Parents? Then? Do you suppose? No matter how involved you are with your kid, they’re always gonna… remember you like you weren’t there as much as you coulda. Or as much as you wanted? I dunno.”

“Wouldn’t know,” Shepard said softly, “No books, no vids, no parents. Nobody to disappoint, nobody to be disappointed in me. I guess our parents are a model for who we become. Father’s distant: children will be distant. History repeats itself. ”

Kaidan let himself slide down the sheets just a touch, squeezed Shepard around the shoulders, which only prompted a soft chuckle and an eye-roll from Shepard.

“I don’t think it’s that,” he said after a long minute. “I think when you love someone, you want to be close. You can’t get too close. You can’t get close enough. There’s always this distance you wish wasn’t there.”

“I can relate to that feeling, at least.” Shepard turned his head, nodding at the data-pad laid aside on the bed. “Are you reading the book your dad liked so much?”

“Yeah. It’s the last in the trilogy.” He retrieved the data-pad, “The one I haven’t read yet. It’s called _World of Wonders_. I just started it this morning. I’m not very far.”

“Mm.” Shepard closed his eyes, “Read it to me.”

“You want me to read it to you out loud?”

“Just start where you’re at now, I’ll pick it up.” Shepard smiled contentedly, letting his head settle on Kaidan’s chest.

“Huh… well… uh… I’m not too far in yet. Takes place about 200 years ago, there’s this famous stage magician who’s telling the story of his life to a couple of people over a few nights… let’s see… where’d I leave off… oh yeah. He’s telling about how he was abducted when he was a child into a traveling carnival.”

“…that sounds… exciting...” Shepard said, nose scrunching up.

“And he just said something really dramatic like: ‘That’s the night I met the devil,’ and the narrator is kinda musing about how people think about the devil. And that’s where we are now. There’s a lot more going on—“

“I’ll pick it up, don’t worry. Read to me.”

“Okay, so, trying to answer what the Devil is. Okay… here we go…” he cleared his throat.

Kaidan began reading, his low and gravelly voice a perfect fit for the novel’s deliberate, academic tone. A few pages later, Kaidan read the line:

 

> “ _Is the Devil, then, sin? No, though sin is very useful to him; anything we may reasonably call sin involves some personal choice. It is flattering to be asked to make important choices. The Devil loves the time of indecision.”_

“Huh.” Shepard’s eyes had opened.

“You okay, Ben?”

“Yeah. I guess that last bit… got to me a bit.”

“Me too…” Kaidan ran his fingers through Shepard’s hair, “…You’ve had to make some tough calls in the past few years, huh?”

“Imagining back to when the Council asked me my recommendation on a human councilor. That didn’t feel flattering at all, just felt like I was getting involved in something I didn’t have any right to be involved in.”

“You nominated Anderson. That was a good call.” Kaidan grinned, “He’s definitely been… a _mentor_ to you…”

“Maybe that’s why it was easy to choose him,” Shepard mustered a smile. “If even _Anderson_ can retire from service…” he shook his head, “For all the good it did. I pick him. He serves. He resigns. Udina takes over. Udina orchestrates a coup…”

“I had to make the choice to put a bullet in Udina’s chest...”

“It was the right call,” Ben huffed.

“Sure. But that ‘time of indecision’… I think maybe I felt the Devil in that.”

“What do you mean?”

“That moment, where you have all your choices laid out in front of you… you can use that time to convince yourself the wrong thing is right, or the right thing is wrong. Or wait to find a reason to act, only to find you don’t have a good reason at all. You ever felt like that? Where a choice you make is going to change everything?”

“All the time, actually.”

“I guess…” Kaidan’s sigh gently lifted Shepard’s head on his chest. “Akuze, Eden Prime…”

“…Horizon, Alchera…” Shepard finished. They sat in silence a moment, Kaidan touching the flecks of gray at his temple.

“Do you ever stop and wonder before you make the choice?”

“…yeah. Standing on Virmire, knowing I couldn’t save you _and_ Ash. I took a long time, felt like an eternity. Still, I knew I didn’t have too much time or I would lose you both. It was horrible.”

“I bet. I think that’s what he’s talking about. I think that time of indecision, that time to wonder… it can make a sin out of anything. Or it can make a sin seem like the right thing...“

There was a long moment before Shepard sighed.

“And I thought I had enough to worry about without thinking of my choices in terms of ‘sin.’” He chuckled, rolling his eyes.

Kaidan guffawed.

“Maybe ‘sin’ is a little strong… I just think that’s why it’s important to have someone to keep you grounded. Keep reminding you of who you are.” He kissed Shepard’s brow “Even if you’re the savior of the Citadel. Like a father? _Mentor?_ Boyfriend maybe?”

It was Shepard’s turn to laugh.

“Keep that advice coming, Kaidan. Don’t know what I’d do without it.” 

Kaidan continued to read, gaze occasionally falling away from the text onto Shepard’s peaceful form, head softly rising and falling with the movement of Kaidan’s breathing. After about an hour he stopped,

“Shepard?” he whispered.

Shepard’s eyes bolted open.

“Yeah?”

“I thought you were asleep.”

“No. I’m just wrapped up in the story. Keep reading.”

“Haha, that’s alright, you don’t want to sleep, but your body does. I can tell.”

“Okay,” Shepard frowned. “As long as I get to hear the rest before shore leave’s over.”

“I can put it on a data-pad for you if you want to read it.” Kaidan switched off the lights, and the lovers settled into one another on the mattress.

“No, I like hearing you read it to me.” He rolled over, kiss up Kaidan’s chest till he could nuzzle into the warmth beneath Kaidan’s chin. “You don’t seem to get it, but you have an incredibly sexy voice.” He kissed his lips in the darkness.

“I do, huh?” Kaidan asked with a throaty chuckle.

“Mm. Sends shivers down my spine.”

The apartment was quiet. Even the sound of the water element downstairs and the cars outside couldn’t be heard through the thick walls. The sound of the two men’s breathing played off one another until they settled into a steady rhythm. Two soldiers, so used to speaking up over the rattle and hum of a starship, had spent the last four hours speaking softly to one another—no longer alarmed at how loud their voices sounded in the stillness.

“…this was a good day, Ben.”

“Better enjoy it while we can.”

“Any big ‘choices’ you need to make tomorrow?”

“Mm. Only how I’m going to spend my day.”

“…I… I like the sound of that. I wish we had more days like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now Shepard's reading those damn books, oh no.
> 
> Next Chapter:
> 
> Citadel DLC: Aftermath of the Armax Arena Malfunction.


	33. The Difference between Purpose and Possibility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Citadel DLC - It's two harrowing Armax Arena matches for Kaidan in a row. Col Vedirus' charity match doesn't turn out as expected, and Shepard and Kaidan finally try out the hot tub.

Kaidan sighed beneath the leader-board outside the Armax Arsenal Arena. He’d been waiting outside on a bench for almost 25 minutes, watching the vorcha cheat another unsuspecting passerby out of a few credits.

By now, Shepard was likely fully engaged with his afternoon appointments with different members of the crew, and Kaidan had spent the morning up on the Presidium. He’d taken a walk through Huerta Memorial, spent some time in a few parks. More than once, he’d opened up the document of _World of Wonders_ and closed it, mumbling under his breath that he had to wait to read it with Shepard.

Then he had opened the Spectre fiction Col Vedirus had given him, and within a few minutes he was shaking his head at himself and storming off for another park or another cab.

But now, at last, he checked the time on his omni-tool and headed into the arena.

Col Vedirus himself was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs in the Athlete Area.

“Major Alenko!” He cried, throwing his arms wide, “ _Kaidan_. Welcome, I should have known you’d be precisely on time. Not a minute too late or too early.” Col pivoted around and called up the challenge selection menu, quickly cycling through options.

“Erm, yeah,” Kaidan smiled. “All warmed up and ready to put on a show for charity. So, who’s joining us? I guess I haven’t even met any of the other Spectres except the ones who got inducted with me.”

“Unfortunately, no other Spectres were as amenable to the idea,” Col stated simply, not bothering to turn from the haptic console. “And without more support, it seemed disingenuous to style this match as a ‘Spectre Goodwill Match.’ But to salvage the issue, I hoped the two of us could have a spirited contest against the Arena’s newest additions.”

At the Enemy Selection screen, Col entered a special code, then scrolled past Cerberus, Geth, Reapers, and Collectors.

“N7?” Kaidan quirked an eyebrow at the display. The Skill Level setting was also marked N7, and Col closed the console. “They have holographic N7 Alliance soldiers?”

“Yes,” Col spun around, crossed his arms in front of himself. “Some of the finest combat training in Citadel space, I’m told. Should be a bracing match!”

“Isn’t it… bad for morale to show us killing a bunch of holographic Alliance Marines?” Kaidan adjusted his gauntlets, but Col shook his head indulgently.

“The geth are also our allies, and they are an available enemy in the Arena.”

“…I mean… might be a point to be made about that, too…” Kaidan scratched the back of his neck, a side-glance at the holographic interface.

“Regardless,” Col placed a hand on Kaidan’s shoulder, which Kaidan regarded warily. “We will be the first to test this particular holographic mesh. Have asked that the match not be made open to the public.”

Kaidan’s eyes widened.

“How… did you manage that?”

“A favor here and there!” Col called breezily as he swept off for the locker-room. “I assure you, nothing so flashy as flexing my Spectre authority!”

Kaidan opened the locker and began stripping out of his uniform. His palm print was programmed in as a secondary owner of Shepard’s private locker: both Spectres’ armor crammed in the small space. Kaidan had been prepared to spend the credits to rent his own locker, but Shepard had insisted they share. Col, of course already dressed in full armor, instead set sat cross-legged on the floor, fiddling with his omni-tool.

“I’ve been thinking about that lately, actually,” Kaidan rolled his trousers and uniform shirt and put them in a tidy row in the locker as he took them off. “I mean, does anyone ever just tell you to stuff it? When you pull the Spectre card on ‘em?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Col lit up a second omni-tool on his other arm, “I’ve never once tried.”

“Oh really?” Kaidan watched Col’s dual omni-tools with a raised eyebrow, stepping into his armor piece by piece.

“Mm,” Col barely spared him a glance, “Head of Citadel Special Projects: what I cannot obtain immediately through a requisition, I gather via espionage.”

“I suppose I should’ve seen that coming…” Kaidan sighed. “Anyway, how d’you wanna plan this? Do you like to get a strategy in before going in the arena, or are you just looking to blow off some steam? Or…?” He watched Col out of the corner of his eye, fastening his greaves.

“This will be my first time in the simulator. Have not yet developed a ritual for an experience like this.” Col smiled up at Kaidan, “In fact, this will be my first time engaged in combat of any kind since my STG days. Should be most exciting.”

“Really? Not even during the Cerberus Attack?”

“CSP protocol dictates that, in the event of an incursion, I lock-down the Archives against intruders. Spent the coup locked in the Citadel Archives preparing sensitive data for deletion.”

“Was it hard to lock yourself up when you knew what was going on outside?” Kaidan frowned, clasping his breastplate and closing the seals.

“Not at all!” Col fiddled back and forth between the omni-tools on either arm. “Terrible devastation Cerberus caused, terrible. But if they had access to millennia of intelligence collected in the Citadel Archives? Worse. I knew my purpose, so my course of action was clear. No one else could do it. It was my responsibility.”

“I can see that…” Kaidan stared intently at Shepard’s pockmarked N7 armor in the locker, scarred and burned and warped from gunfire, Banshee claws… “Doesn’t mean you always have to like it.”

Col shrugged.

“In my position with Special Projects, ‘purpose’ is my main focus.” He rose to his feet, using one omni-tool to calibrate the other.

“The archives?” Kaidan chuckled, “Monitoring romance stories about Spectres?”

“Not entirely. While my position _is_ to curate the archives and monitor… extranet traffic… out of the Citadel, the number one special project we have endeavored to solve in my tenure is the Keepers.” He regarded Kaidan with a furtive smirk.

“But that’s illegal? According to the Council…”

“Exactly. Which is why the majority of my predecessor’s work was arresting ‘scientists’ performing illegal studies. But just because the Citadel forbids research does not mean they are not conducting their own. We’ve learned more in the past three years than Special Projects has been able to discover about the Keepers since the asari first had a presence aboard the Citadel. Saren’s attack and the failed activation signal were the key to establishing a basic framework for how the Keepers work.

“Before that,” his large dark eyes shone in the light of his omni-tools, the shadows of his face strangely inverted, “All we knew about the Keepers was that they were creatures of purpose. They adjust the layout, function, and structure of the station to meet the needs of whomever is living here. Within days of a new species reaching statistically significant quantities aboard, the Keepers will have prepared a section of the wards for their habitation. And yet, they will occasionally make massive changes—or incidental ones—seemingly of their own devices. Rearrange an office, convert a residential tower into a generator.”

“I’ve heard something about that,” Kaidan fastened his gauntlet and began double-checking his seals. “Why do they do that?”

“We don’t know,” Col smiled. “They have their own _purpose_ , and while it appears to be serving the races of the galaxy, that purpose—I believe—is only incidentally parallel to their true nature.”

Kaidan stared at Shepard’s armor once again. The white accents down the shoulder were chipping away, the way the red had muddied to a ruddy-brown.

“And this reminds you of yourself?” Kaidan said softly, narrowing his eyes at Col. The salarian returned a wide grin.

“Of course. Doesn’t it remind you of yourself, Major?” He returned to fiddling with the haptic displays on his wrists, “Very few of us can be perfect altruists, after all. We aim to help others—as soldiers—and to fight the battles that must be fought. Often times we feel a call to a deeper purpose, other motivations, that align with these. Who’s to say which drives us? The Keepers prepare the Citadel for habitation, only recently did we discover this was to groom the galaxy for conquest. And yet, who’s to say that even _that_ purpose does not disguise some deeper motivation?”

“As soldiers,” Kaidan swallowed touching Shepard’s armor, “We’re accountable to someone. We choose to go along with the purpose we’re given. The Keepers weren’t given that chance; they were made that way by the Reapers.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true. And it is the large choices—choices above and beyond what our protocols dictate—which leave us truly questioning our purpose. Those choices which leave us accountable to no one but our consciences. Or accountable to everyone.” He shrugged, “But I am no soldier. I am, at heart, a scientist.”

Col Vedirus clenched his fists and the omni-tools on his arms transformed in a flash into twin omni-blades, at least twice as long as the standard configuration. The whir of the mini-fabricators and the overclocked capacitors kept the glowing orange blades extended as Col continued to speak.

“You can’t kill a Keeper, either.” He grinned, the hiss of his flash-forged blade heating the air, “Kill one, and another will be manufactured to replace it within the hour. An exact copy. Identical in every way. It will resume the dead drone’s task right where it left off.”

“Aren’t… uh…” Kaidan tested the fit of his gauntlets. “Aren’t all the Keepers identical, anyhow?”

“Identical in purpose, that much is certain. Did you know that the number of Keepers is dependent on the population inhabiting the Citadel? But it never reduces in periods where the station’s population has decreased. Indeed, the number of Keepers has increased complementary to the influx of refugees aboard. However, since the Cerberus invasion—despite no further increase in refugees—the Keeper population has grown by 34%. Interesting, isn’t it?”

“Why do you think that is?” Kaidan concertedly was not watching Col’s blades as he spoke.

“No idea,” Col chuckled, blades disappearing in a puff of steam. “But I’m certain I will figure it out.”

“Maybe a little fight in the arena will help you clear your head, “ Kaidan turned back into the locker, removing Shepard’s M-11 Suppressor pistol and fitting it to his armor below his assault rifle.

“Certainly,” Col stretched his back, arms high above his head, twisting his spine around with a contented groan. The movement was surprisingly graceful, like a ballet movement. “I feel these N7 holograms will be a perfect challenge.”

“Yeah,” Kaidan’s posture was finally beginning to relax. “I think I could use a nice, simple holographic fight right about now, too.”

The two made for the lift up into the arena and Col leaned back to inspect the pistol at the small of Kaidan’s back.

“Is that Commander Shepard’s pistol?”

“Yeah,” Kaidan rubbed the back of his neck. “I, uh… he won’t mind me borrowing it.”

The salarian laughed and slapped his knee, practically honking in glee.

“Oh, if only the author of _The Commander’s Heat_ could see you now!”

“Oh god,” Kaidan buried his face in his hands.

Col had chosen the Wingman arena. Kaidan double-checked his tech protocols, the simulated breeze stirring his hair while the simulator shuddered to life, generating the exterior of the massive ship sweeping towards the sunset.

_Round One: starting!_

There was a horn and three holographic soldiers appeared below the Spectres, immediately rushing for cover.

“They’re…” Kaidan ducked down to avoid a volley of gunfire, peaked over his barricade at the soldier rushing to advance. “They all look like Commander Shepard…”

Three identical holograms of Commander Benjamin Shepard—a soldier, an engineer, and a biotic adept—rolled out of cover to continue their assault on the position of the two Spectres.

“Oh dear,” Col said, disaffected. “ _That_ certainly is a poor PR move. Will you be alright fighting these facsimiles?”

“Not my first time fighting a fake Shepard,” Kaidan grit his teeth.

“Indeed not,” Col switched on his incinerator ammo, “What’s the strategy, Major?”

Kaidan and Col ended up negotiating a strategy over comms as they began returning fire, leaping to separate cover when an expertly placed grenade bounced off the wall behind them.

They took out the engineer first, Kaidan closing the distance to eliminate his shields and duck out of the way of his incineration attack. The next moment, the engineer exploded in flames from Col’s incineration.

“Ha!” Col crowed from behind cover, “Should burn through _any_ armor!”

Kaidan didn’t miss a second, his gunfire soon eliminating the Shepard facsimile. His jaw was locked tight, stunned and standing out of cover for a long moment as the twitching, flaming hologram dissolved into pixels.

They looked like Shepard, but they didn’t sound like him as the Adept screamed out from Kaidan’s fatal Reave before bursting into particles.

_Round One is over!_

The second round began with the two separated across the field.

“Col,” Kaidan barked into his comms, ducking as an incineration blast exploded over his head. “Infiltrator’s the wildcard, can you take him out? I’ll draw fire from the sentinel and the—“

He was cut off as the vanguard—dressed in Shepard’s N7 armor and all—appeared in a bolt of light, leveling an M-11 Wraith at Kaidan’s chest. The hologram’s armor was smooth, undamaged, the red and white stripe down the shoulder as bright as if it were freshly painted.

Kaidan’s pistol was drawn before the vanguard could get off a shot, and the Suppressor annihilated its shield. He followed up the assault with a cryoblast as the vanguard fled behind cover.

“Col, I’ve neutralized the Vanguard’s charge, for now,” Kaidan shivered lightly, reloaded his pistol before swapping it for his rifle. He checked his radar: only two hostiles registered. “Have you engaged that infiltrator?”

“Taken care of, Major!” Col responded cheerily over the comms.

“…and the respawn?”

“Taken care of!” Col chuckled, and Kaidan bolted out of cover to exchange fire with the sentinel which had been routed from his cover by Col. “It was not much of an infiltrator, I’m afraid!”

Kaidan managed to catch the sentinel with an overload pulse, and Col dashed up.

His twin omni-blades were out in a second, long limbs pirouetting out of the hologram’s fire, then he whirled back. In a flash of blazing orange, Col had sliced its rifle in half, dismembered the N7 sentinel in a flurry of quick strokes.

Kaidan didn’t dwell, spinning back to take out the vanguard. It was moving slowly, face not registering pain or fatigue despite the substantial damage it had taken from Kaidan’s attacks. It was a lot like Shepard in that regard.

When it leapt to deliver a nova, Kaidan rolled back out of the blast zone.

It didn’t even flinch as Kaidan filled it with holes.

_Round Two is over!_

“I’d put money on the last round being all six together,” Kaidan panted popping his heat sinks and slumping behind cover with Col Vedirus.

“I would _not_ take that wager,” Col shook his head, switching his SMG to disruptor ammo. “Do they fight like Commander Shepard?” He asked, the shortness of breath seemingly gone from his voice.

“I’ve never fought Shepard,” Kaidan growled, sizing up the field. “Not the real one.”

“I suppose not.” Col gave him a sidelong look.

“…the Vanguard seems a lot slower than Shepard.” Kaidan admitted, begrudgingly. That made Col guffaw.

Round three did, in fact, see the two Spectres besieged by six Shepard holograms with different classes. Kaidan hastily laid out a plan that funneled the soldiers into a bottle neck, allowing them both to eliminate the heavy-hitting soldier and adept together before Col circled back around under cloak to take out the wildcard sniper, the two then converging on the remaining assailants from two fronts.

In another few minutes, constant incineration and cluster-grenade assault had pushed Kaidan back into a corner and rapidly running out of ammo. The vanguard was moving too quickly for him to get off a good shot, and his tech abilities were still cooling down, his biotics bouncing off the hologram’s barriers.

Col was in a sparring match with the engineer, omni-blades locked, with the salarian buckling under the greater strength of the hologram. Kaidan rolled out of the way of a shotgun blast, recharged his Reave, and nailed the engineer with a glowing blast.

A second later the vanguard had careened into Kaidan with a full force charge, knocking him to the ground. He scrambled for his gun, but the hologram was winding up to deliver a nova on his head.

There was a shimmer over the vanguard’s shoulder.

Col calmly stepped out of his cloak.

Held up a hand.

Overload.

The vanguard’s shields shattered, staggering it forwards away from the pulse. Col gripped the hologram by the collar of its armor, placed the barrel of his gun to the back of its neck.

Kaidan blinked and the vanguard shattered into a shower of pixels.

_The match goes to Alenko!_

The salarian extended his hand, helping Kaidan to his feet.

“Exhilarating battle!” He clapped Kaidan on the shoulder, holstered his weapon.

“Y-yeah,” Kaidan stared at the ground where the vanguard had fallen. There wasn’t even a charred mark to indicate the vanguard had stood there a moment before. “Thanks for the save, there.”

“Only returning the favor!” Col declared brightly, taking in the scene of the holographic fireworks exploding overhead. “Did not anticipate the engineer being so quick on its defense. Would not have overcome him had you not helped when you did—at great personal risk to yourself.”

“Well,” Kaidan holstered his Suppressor, “I had a spare moment…”

“I’m impressed, Major. You show a keener eye for tactics than your profile would suggest.” Col Vedirus beckoned to the exit of the simulator. “Surprisingly high-risk/high-reward.”

“Doesn’t make sense to go slow and steady once you’ve made your mind up, does it?” Kaidan twisted until his back cracked stepping into the lift.

Col made a playful ‘hmm’ deep in his throat.

“The simulator makes such tactics easier, doesn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Simulations,” Col put a thoughtful finger to his chin, “No complex motivations, high body count is the goal, no concern of who you are orphaning on the other side… or on your own. No risk of damage. No ‘higher purpose’ on either side, except kill or be killed.”

“I suppose that’s true…” Kaidan clenched and unclenched his fists. Shrugged, “Same with the Reapers, though.”

“Not quite, according to your own report on the Normandy’s excursion to Despoina. The Reapers are imbued with purpose from the Leviathan—their creators. Suppose, like the Keepers, they have a deeper purpose we have yet to understand?”

“Col,” Kaidan placed an arm around the other Spectre’s shoulders, burying his face in his other hand with a thin smile, “I’m really too tired to be going on like this! That was a rough fight, can’t we just… get a drink or something and talk about… vids or something? C’mon. Whiskey’s on me.”

Col guffawed and stepped out of the lift into the locker-room, his loud, long laughter startling two asari huntresses lacing up their boots on a nearby bench.

“Excellent! Yes, would like that very much. Human-bonding-time!” He nodded to Shepard’s locker, “I’ll let you change back out of your armor.”

“Naw,” Kaidan shook his head, opening the locker for only a moment to stash the Suppressor back in its place before locking it away again. “I’m gonna stay in armor. Meeting Shepard here a little later for another battle. I hate putting this stuff on.”

“Ah, so no relaxing afternoon for you after all that?” Col crossed his arms.

Kaidan smirked.

“The Commander asked me to meet him here in a few hours. I guess the simulator’s been acting up and the tech people have been recruiting Shepard to fix it. He’s been in twice already to help out, but I guess they think they’ve almost got it isolated? Just a little fight with some elite enemies.” He clapped Col on the shoulder and they made for the stairs. “Safe to say I’m never gonna have a fight in this arena as tough as this one ever again!”

++

Liara, Kaidan, and Shepard stumbled out onto the boardwalk from out of the Armax Arsenal Arena. For a moment they stood, as if thunderstruck, blinked at the crush of people spending their evening on the Strip.

“I was so wrong,” Kaidan mumbled, staggered on his feet with nothing to lean against. “Col would be laughing his ass off if he could see me now.”

They’d just spent a harrowing 8 minutes in the arena, fending-off 4 waves of Super-Elite enemies. The glitch in the Arena’s system made the projected haptic holograms hit with the force of a real Banshee, the bullets—as good as real bullets—punching right through the fake play-shielding.

Liara turned to the other two, then listlessly limped for the nearest cab.

“Liara, let me at least buy you some noodles.” Kaidan called out, “I know I’m starving. Let’s… let’s just get some calories in us so we don’t leave the day like this, alright?”

Liara turned back around, hobbled a bit at the waist.

“I really want nothing more than a shower and to sleep,” she groaned, “but you two _do_ owe me after _that_.”

“It’s my fault; I can’t tell you two enough,” Shepard said, body crooked at an odd angle to take the pressure off his hip. “I’m so sorry.”

“’Arena has a special challenge for me,’ you said. ‘We’ll be a biotic trio,’ you said. ‘It’ll be fun,’ you said.” Kaidan moaned ruefully, rubbing his head. His hair was mussed up in back and matted down in front, a greasy sheen to it. Just a short walk away was the krogan noodle stand, and the three limped their way over.

“The minute the arena went haywire, I should have known.” Liara said, making for the nearest stool.

“Guess I was the optimist. Wasn’t until I got hit by the first _real_ shot that I started to think something went wrong.” Kaidan sat next to her.

“What sort of irresponsible system allows a glitch with the _scoreboard_ to cause the holo-generated enemies to start doing actual damage?” Liara said, wincing as she straightened her back, “By the goddess, if I knew my vacation was going to be like this...”

“They _thought_ it was the scoreboard when I first helped them out the other day.” Shepard had to physically lift right arm with his left hand to set it on the counter. “But it wasn’t that. Then they thought it was a certain zone…”

“Was the system trying to shoot you with live fire?” Kaidan managed something like a yawning grimace, stretched his back.

“They were normal matches,” Shepard shook his head. “I handled those solo, but… this one seemed like fun.” He tried to smile, doing his best to lean casually on the bar, “Had to get the Dream Team back together!”

Liara and Kaidan stared at Shepard’s toothy grin with a restrained contempt.

“Next time maybe should just play chess, or something,” Liara answered finally, exchanging a look with Kaidan.

“It was a rough fight.” Shepard clapped Kaidan’s shoulder as he sat. It was difficult to tell who winced more in the process.” The three ordered the oddly textured meat noodles, and sat in silence while their bowls were prepared.

“I don’t suppose there’s any way we can just trick the Reapers into going in there?” Liara said after a moment.

Moods improved steadily once they had devoured their appetizer and a first round of drinks, and by the time the speckled noodles came, they were able to talk more freely and ignore the body aches more naturally.

“Liara, I know I’ve told you this already since we left the Sol System, but you are kicking ass with that pistol these days.” Kaidan chuckled.

“Thank you, Kaidan. I remarked to Shepard on Mars how capable you’ve become as well.” She allowed herself a half-smile.

“An hour later a robot picked me up by the face and slammed my head into the side of a shuttle. Guess I blew that one.”

“That’s not funny.” Liara said, raising her eyebrows.

“Seconded.” Shepard said, receiving his bowl.

“C’mon you two, if _I_ can laugh about it, you can too.”

“It was a helpless feeling,” Liara said, attempting to make something orderly out of a forkful of noodles, “All three of us on our last legs, you’d already shot her several times, and besides, I’ve never seen Shepard look so worried.” She glanced sideways at Shepard, “And when Commander Shepard sounds worried, everyone’s worried.”

Kaidan scoffed, but did reach over to squeeze Shepard’s hand.

“Wish I could’ve seen the look on your face, Shepard.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Shepard was terse, but held his hand tighter when Kaidan moved to pull away.

“It felt like a bad memory repeating,” Liara gathered a tidy bundle of noodles and carefully bit them off her fork. “Shepard hoisting you over his shoulder with that look on his face, just like Virmire. It was terrible.”

“…Come on guys!” Kaidan said, slurping at his bowl. “We just got out of a helluva fight. Let’s not get real serious here.”

“Shepard hovered over you in the med-bay when we boarded the Normandy. He refused to leave your side until I reminded him how badly we needed to get away from the Reapers.”

“…Is that true, Shepard?” Kaidan asked, a warmth in his tone.

“Well… you were hurt… under my command,” Shepard said, chewing at a mouthful of thick noodles. He swallowed, “Of course I was worried about you.”

“Well… thanks for getting me out of there.” Kaidan curled his fingers around Shepard hand again.

“Honestly, that it took you two this long to find each other is a mystery I’ll never understand.” Liara smiled warmly and the three talked like old friends as they ate their food. When Shepard and Liara had each finished three bowls to Kaidan’s five, they decided to break for the evening.

“Kaidan, I’m sorry to do this, but I know I’m going to be sleeping in tomorrow, so I’ll be a bit behind on work. Do you mind if we catch the afternoon showing at that hanar kabuki place instead of the morning curtain?”

“No, that’s fine. Long as it doesn’t go too late; tomorrow night’s date night.” He elbowed Shepard in the ribs.

“Good. And I think I may have some ideas about filtering selected Spectre slash fic off of the extranet that we can discuss tomorrow,” Liara said, barely allowing a smile to show in the corner of her mouth.

“…what?” Shepard’s head whipped around.

“I’ll… uh… tell you later,” Kaidan waved and turned Shepard back towards the Tower.

++

“I’m definitely ready for a little time in that hot tub.” Shepard sat on the bed, stretching out his back after the long time it took him to remove his boots.

“I almost asked you if we should invite Liara back here to soak too…” Kaidan had already stripped to the waist, “I feel sorta bad. I wanted you all to myself.” He walked over to the bed and helped Shepard to his feet, putting his arms around his waist. He pressed his lips to Shepard’s, earning a contented moan.

“Mmm. You’re sweaty,” Shepard grinned, pulling back

“Then I guess we better get in the tub,” Kaidan returned.

“Your head okay?”

“Sure, little buzz is all.”

“Hang on one second, turn around.” Kaidan pressed his back into Shepard’s chest letting Ben’s arms cover his. They closed their eyes and breathed together, a moment later Shepard’s biotics encased both of them in blue.

Kaidan sighed.

“Thanks, that feels so much better. I don’t know how I lived with that for so long before you started syncing our implants.”

“I’m just glad we’re getting better at it.” Shepard touched the wall, allowing a spark of static to discharge off his finger. “It was always awkward wondering if it was going to connect or not.”

Kaidan slid out of his underwear and stepped into the bathroom, “I can’t believe I haven’t been using this every day.” Kaidan called out into the bedroom sliding into the foaming waters of Shepard’s hot tub. “It just seemed like so much work to take a bath. I’ve been an idiot.” He sank into the water and closed his eyes.

The lights in the bedroom went out, and Shepard stepped into the bathroom, turning off the lights there as well. He stood staring down at Kaidan for a moment, the blue lights from within the tub the only illumination playing across his naked body.

“Look at you…” Shepard breathed at last.

Kaidan’s hand came out of the water, beckoning.

“Get in here.”

Shepard slipped into the water and crossed the distance to Kaidan, kneeling to the floor of the tub so Kaidan had to lean over to kiss him right above the waterline. Kaidan was breathing heavy when their lips parted.

“You’re getting better and better at the sweet talk thing.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Shepard smiled against his lips.

“That’s how good you’re getting,” Kaidan pressed a kiss into the dimple in Ben’s cheek. “Come on, sit up here.” He scooted to one side to allow Shepard to sit next to him. He leaned Shepard forward and his massaging knuckles began to work down Shepard’s back. Shepard sighed as a tiny bolt of dark energy massaged deep into his synthetic muscle fibers.

“Oo. That feels good. Can you do that in here? Do you need me out of the water so you can see what you’re doing?”

“No. This is great, just like this.” Kaidan kissed Shepard’s shoulder. “I, uhh, I know your body pretty well these days. How’s your hip feeling?”

“Honestly?” Shepard groaned, “It’s killing me.”

“Was all I could think about when I saw that Prime knock you across the arena.”

“I would’ve thought you were a little more worried about the Atlas that was trying to blow you up at the same time.”

 “Psh! That old thing?” Kaidan pressed a kiss to the back of Shepard’s ear, “Just waiting for Liara to get off a singularity so I could finish him off.”

“Well, it was all I could think about.”

“The geth? Could handle those things in my sleep. I don’t think I’ve ever shot more of anything in my life than I have geth.” Kaidan’s fingertips settled into pressure points above Shepard’s buttocks, and the tiny warp field began working the kinks out of Shepard’s mangled hip.

“Didn’t think anything could surprise me, anymore,” Shepard mumbled, body twisting against Kaidan’s fingers digging into his muscles. “Guess I got a little complacent on vacation.”

“Routine-mission-gone-wrong,” Kaidan chuckled, “that’s our MO, Shepard.”

“Yeah. Just like old times,” Shepard sighed, easing back and letting his head loll back onto Kaidan’s shoulder.

“I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.”

“Remember how we were supposed to earn some shore leave once we had patrolled Amada for the geth remnant?”

“On the SR-1? Yeah. Joker was cracking about… what was it…”

“How disappointed he was that he wouldn’t be able to go to the Citadel for shore leave because it was still such a wreck,” Shepard murmured.

“That’s it. Good memory.”

“Wasn’t as long ago for me,” he shrugged.

“Yeah. Right. That was supposed to be, what? A week after we got shot down over Alchera.”

“That’s right…” Shepard raised his hand to the water-line, letting it slip between his fingers as he stirred back and forth, as if feeling the water itself: hardcoding. “I wish we’d had that shore leave.”

“We were gonna visit Vancouver,” Kaidan said quietly.

“Yeah. We were.” Shepard leaned forward, Kaidan’s fingers slowed as they traced a line back up his spine.

“Never thought I’d convince you to go. Thought you’d be looking to go someplace sunny. Didn’t think you’d want to take shore leave with your Lieutenant.”

Shepard arched his back into Kaidan’s hands, breathing in the steam coming off the churning water.

“You were my best friend…”

“Hmm.” Kaidan’s fingers faltered for a moment, stroking down Shepard’s sides before working his thumbs back into his shoulder blades. “Yeah.”

“Then we lost the ship. I spent two years… in a coma or something. Rebuilt by Cerberus…” his voice grew quieter with each event listed. “Brought me back a scarred wreck. Cloned me.”

“Hey,” Kaidan reached his arms around Shepard’s back to pull him into his chest, “They brought you back to me.”

Shepard nodded silently and Kaidan continued working the kinks out of his back.

“Ugh,” Ben groaned a moment later, “I was supposed to write back to that Spectre about my clone’s remains.”

“Col Vedirus?” Kaidan’s ministrations along Shepard’s back hitched, “What did you decide you wanted to do?”

“I think I’m going to ask to just have him buried.” Shepard shook his head, pressing a thumb to his temple. “I don’t want him to be a science experiment anymore.”

Kaidan nodded, but his fingers slowed to a stop.

“Did Col mention anything else?” he asked softly.

“Like what?”

“Well,” Kaidan cleared his throat. “If you’re still worried about what Cerberus might’ve done… Col has a way to check your genetic structure to make sure that you’re still you. He can detect any leftover tampering to your genetic code.”

“And he told you about this?”

“Yeah,” Kaidan’s brow furrowed. “Asked me to pass along the message.”

Shepard’s shoulders tensed, turning his head with a great sigh, silhouetted against the blue glow from the tub. He was like a shadow on the surface cast from below, as if he were creature caged and sustained by the small pool.

“…what do you think I should do?” He shifted in Kaidan’s arms.

Kaidan stopped massaging, ran fingers softly across Shepard’s body: calloused fingers tracing droplet to droplet like constellations made of water. He didn’t speak until all the beads on Shepard’s shoulders had been smoothed into his skin.

“It’s a tough call, Ben.” He took Shepard into his arms. “I don’t need to see any results to know who you are, I’m sure. But if you think it’s going to give you some peace, you should do it.” His arms tightened around Shepard again. “But no test is gonna convince me you’re not the man I invited back to Vancouver for shore leave.”

“…It means so much to me that you trust me again, Kaidan. Thank you for… being patient with me.”

“Patient?” Kaidan huffed a laugh, “I made you work damn hard to earn my trust again. I was wrong. But I’ll be damned if you didn’t do it. That’s the Shepard I know.”

“Kaidan, I’m going to say this, and I don’t…” he trailed off and rubbed his eyes, shifting in the water so he and Kaidan were sitting abreast, “I don’t know if it’s just all the people telling me that they ‘knew’ we were together back on the first Normandy—honestly I don’t—but I think I’ve had these feelings for you for a long time. Maybe I thought it wouldn’t go anywhere, so I went about my business. But when I told you that… I was attracted to you but didn’t mention it… I think maybe it was deeper than that, even then. I got so caught up in that mission…”

Kaidan leaned up and kissed Shepard deeply.

“Shh. I think I know what you mean Shepard. It uh… might have been the same with me.”

“I wonder,” Ben whispered, “If we’d had that shore leave in Vancouver…”

“If something would’ve happened?”

“Yeah. I usually have a good memory for what’s going on,” he swallowed, “But what I’m feeling? I don’t know.”

“We’ve got now. We’ve got each other. It doesn’t matter when it started.”

“It does.” Shepard shook his head, “‘Sometimes the way a thing happens does matter.’ When you need to let someone know you’re not only in a relationship because the world’s ending. That you would still be with him even if everything wasn’t going to hell. It’d help to have some history.”

“Yeah, Ben. You’re right.” He took Shepard’s face in his hands, “I’ve wanted this for a long time, Shepard. And I don’t know… how long, or when it started. And if we would’ve taken that shore leave together and you had said something… I think I would’ve said ‘yes.’ What I know is that the Reapers coming didn’t scare me into your arms because I didn’t know where else to go. It made me focus on what I really want from my life. And I want you, Ben.”

Shepard covered Kaidan’s hand in his own, pressing his cheek into Kaidan’s palm. They settled back into each other’s arms, talking softly about nothing in particular until Shepard slowly drifted to sleep against Kaidan’s side. Kaidan roused him lightly and they got out of the tub, dried each other off, and turned the light back on in the bedroom. As Shepard threw the covers back and fluffed the pillows, Kaidan noticed the dog-tags lying next to Ben’s discarded clothes.

“What’s this?” He asked, picking up the tags and examining the heavy ring that hung from them.

“Hm? Oh.” Shepard smiled and walked up, “It’s from EDI, it’s called a Victory Ring. It’s made from different alloys from all the Council worlds. I guess the idea is that when they bind together they make the ring stronger.”

“Huh. That’s really great, actually. What a cool gift.”

“When she stopped by this afternoon she wanted me to help her on a shopping spree. I guess she’s getting gifts for everyone.”

“Oh yeah? I didn’t know she had any money.”

“Joker’s credit chit.”

“Ah. They must be serious, huh?”

“Looks like it,” Shepard said, “Anyway, I told her I’d keep it on my tags. Maybe once I’m out of the military I’ll actually wear it.”

The lights dimmed as the two got into bed, “’Once’ you’re out, huh?”

“Everyone retires sometime. To tell you truth, I think even Anderson’s thinking of retiring once we take Earth back.”

“Yeah. Sometime.”

“Yeah.”

“Never really thought of you as a jewelry kinda guy.” Kaidan asked, intertwining his fingers with Shepard’s.

“Depends on the jewelry.”

“Mhm. So did you help EDI get gifts for the whole crew?”

“Yeah, though she had pretty good ideas. I just provided… guidance… here and there.”

“So what did she get me, huh?” Kaidan chuckled.

“Even if I knew, I’d never tell you. She would measure your heart rate and know you were pretending to be surprised.”

“But you said you helped her with everyone’s gift!”

“She said that she felt she understood you pretty well. I didn’t know the two of you talked so much.”

“We had a couple conversations. I like talking to her. Still freaks me out a little when I see her in the corridor when I’m not expecting her. But yeah, we had a heart to heart a little while back.”

“When I helped her pick out something for Joker, she offered to return the favor and help me pick out a present for you.” Shepard said, self-satisfied.

“Oh yeah? Well don’t give it to me yet, I’ll just feel like you’re trying to pay me back for the shotgun.”

“And the couches,” Shepard yawned. “Save it for after we blow up the Reapers, then?”

“Yeah. After the war’s over. When things settle down. Maybe we can do a little settling ourselves.” Kaidan closed his eyes and rolled into Shepard’s side, their legs tangling together beneath the sheets.

“Mhm. After the war.”

Shepard held Kaidan to his side for a long time. Usually the first to fall asleep and first to wake up, tonight Shepard lay awake long after Kaidan’s breath had settled into the easy rhythm of sleep. 

“Kaidan?” Shepard whispered the words almost inaudibly, and his lover didn’t stir. “Sometimes I don’t know when we’re being serious and when we’re just flirting. At the bar the other night, Wrex and I were talking about settling down… family… I never had a family… people I cared about, people I called family… but… I want…” he sighed and steadied his breathing, “Wrex said ‘Life as short as yours, you can’t drag your feet, tell Kaidan what you want.’ It makes me scared to say out loud, though. I think I’d be a bad father… too serious… or too… distant. But with you there…? Things feel possible when you’re with me. Have you ever wanted to start a family, Kaidan? Maybe we could… maybe sometime I’ll work up the courage to ask you when you’re awake. After the war.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Citadel DLC - Aftermath of Kaidan and Shepard's date night. There's some sex. For sure.


	34. The Difference between a Date and a Sanity Check, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rest of Kaidan and Shepard's Citadel Date night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's sex in this chapter. If it's not your thing, skip ahead a bit to the one-quarter mark.

Kaidan had been too eager to wait for the bedroom, whirling Shepard around at the foot of the stairs and pressing a kiss to his neck. The movement took Shepard by surprise, and he melted into Kaidan’s arms.

They practically tumbled backwards onto the stairs, Kaidan wrestling with the sleeves of Shepard’s leather jacket, throwing it behind him with a grunt. Ben’s hands guided his up under his shirt, pushing the hem all the way to his collarbone so Kaidan could kiss and lap a line down the center of his body.

“Kaidan,” the word trembled out of Shepard’s mouth, gripped Kaidan’s shoulders hard at the feeling of hot breath ghosting back up the wet trail Kaidan had left above his navel.

“Ben?” Kaidan had a twinkle in his eyes, kneeling between Shepard’s legs on the stairs. “I hope you weren’t joking about burning off some calories.”

“I wasn’t.” He grabbed at Kaidan’s collar, crashing their bodies together. He held Kaidan’s face, breathless kisses when Kaidan’s fingers scratched down his bare back. Kaidan gave a pleasured chuckle when Shepard squirmed beneath him, then a sharp gasp when Ben got some leverage on the stairs, grinding their bodies together.

“G-good,” Kaidan shuddered, breaths coming in ragged gulps. Shepard licked at his swollen lips, and Kaidan moaned. “Cuz I’m feeling… like I want something… special. I, uhh… God.” He kissed him again, reached one hand to feel the heat between Shepard’s thighs, teasing along the length beneath his trousers.

It was a long time before Shepard came up for air, face hot.

“I can’t feel my legs, I think my hip’s acting up…”

Kaidan didn’t miss a beat, smoothly pulling him off the steps and into his arms. With arms around his waist to support him, Shepard tugged his shirt off and dropped it.

“We could use the downstairs bedroom,” Kaidan had both hands on Shepard’s ass, now. “If you don’t think you can make it up the stairs?”

“I want you in our bedroom.” His tongue traced along Kaidan’s collarbone.

“They’re _all_ our bedroom,” Kaidan laughed, tipping his head to let Shepard taste the sheen of sweat at his pulse-point.

“ _Our_ bedroom,” Shepard growled, pulling back and slapping Kaidan’s ass. “Lead the way.”

By the landing, Shepard’s hands were back on Kaidan’s ass and struggling with the uniform belt, cursing the shirt between him and kissing between Kaidan’s shoulder blades. Kaidan coyly wriggled away, pants held half-down his thighs. He ascended the stairs with a tortuous slowness.

“Just making sure you can keep up with that bum hip.” When he smirked over his shoulder, Shepard remained on the landing, pants unbuttoned and bare chest heaving. He watched his boyfriend’s exposed ass climb the stairs.

“I think you’ve got the blood flowing again,” Shepard panted.

“Good. Take off your pants,” Kaidan whipped his shirt over his head. “Then get the hell up here, Shepard.”

Shepard bit his lip, unzipped his pants and let them slide to the ground. He wasn’t wearing any underwear, and he stalked up to Kaidan on all fours with a feral grin.

They were already naked by the time they kneeled together on the bed, every inch bared to explore between needy kisses. Ben’s fingers hooked behind Kaidan’s shoulders, slid down the crease in his back and over his tailbone. Kaidan groaned, pushed back when Shepard’s finger teased at him.

“Ben,” Kaidan kissed Shepard’s straining shoulder, leaning further forward to allow him better access. “Our first time, you wanted it rough, didn’t you?” His ears were pink as he breathed the words against Shepard’s neck.

“Y-yeah,” his other hand tangled in Kaidan’s hair. “Just want you. So bad.”

“Then let’s do it, hmm?” Kaidan eased back, mischievous smile whiting out any sign of nervousness in his posture.

“Yeah.” Shepard gulped, stunned when Kaidan lowered himself to the bed: hard, breathing heavy, and grinning up at him.

“Be rough with me, then,” he keened up, hips coming off the mattress. Wrapped his arms around Shepard’s waist. “Come on.”

Shepard had to close his eyes, digging his fingers into Kaidan’s thighs, feeling him quiver at the scratch of Shepard’s stubbled cheek against his leg.

He snarled when he flipped Kaidan onto his stomach, kissing up the back of his thighs. Kaidan always bucked when Shepard’s tongue entered him, but never as hard as when Shepard pulled him up onto his knees at the same moment like this.

Shepard took his time, but didn’t go slow at all: alternately stooping down to taste the glistening head of Kaidan’s cock hanging down, then licking up the length all the way to his tailbone.

When Shepard leaned away to get the lube, Kaidan turned back around—pulling Shepard back in for a kiss that lasted all the while Ben’s slick fingers opened him.

“Ben!” he gasped when Ben’s fingers crooked inside him, squeezing down in a shudder of pleasure.

“Kaidan?” Shepard replied with a smirk, letting his knuckle tease at the tightness when he slid out of Kaidan.

“Come on,” Kaidan moaned between fierce kisses. He was so open that Ben didn’t even need to push the first inch into him. “Do it, I wanna see you get wild for me.” He bit Shepard’s lip—hard—to punctuate the point.

Shepard snapped his hips forward with a muffled grunt, his whole body arcing back with the force, and Kaidan was ready for it. They pawed at each other, Shepard clinging to Kaidan’s leg, Kaidan pulling at Ben’s hips to hold himself deeper with every thrust.

“You want wild?” Shepard heaved into Kaidan again, sucking at Kaidan’s neck with a swollen lip. Kaidan only grunted in response, snapping his hips to meet Shepard’s thrusts.

They were racing each other to their own climax. But at some point, Shepard had laid down on his side for a better angle. Then he had Kaidan cradled against him, locked in a deep kiss: one hand behind Kaidan’s neck, and the other arm behind his knees.

He caressed Kaidan’s skin, held him tight, shuddered together with him whenever Kaidan pushed down to meet his rhythm. They passed a single moan between each other’s lips, and Kaidan held Shepard when he came. Not long after, Shepard returned the favor, and all the thrusting and grunting had simmered to gentle touches and murmurs between them.

Shepard reached over the side of the bed where one of the pillows had been flung, and used it to prop up under his hip. Kaidan watched through heavy lids until Shepard lay back, head resting on Kaidan’s stomach, laying cross-wise on the bed.

“I can’t… remember… the last time I came like that.”

“Do you remember the last time you came twice?” Shepard stroked his hand down Kaidan’s thigh and got up on shaky knees to kiss his lips. “Cuz I want to make sure you do tonight.”

“It’s nice… to be able to be as loud as we want,” Kaidan grinned up into the kiss.

“We’ve always been in such a hurry. Why were we always in such a hurry?” Shepard said as their lips met again.

“Because… hell.” Kaidan’s tongue forced its way into Shepard’s mouth in a moment of renewed passion before he sagged back into the only other pillow remaining on the bed, “I’m making a goal to get that sound out of you every time we have sex.”

“What sound?” Shepard nibbled at Kaidan’s collarbone.

“If I tell you, you might fake it.” Kaidan jerked as Shepard’s hand wrapped around his soft and oversensitive cock. “It’s a sound ‘Commander’ Shepard would never make.”

“Is that right? Well, now that I know I do it, you’re going to have to work a lot harder to hear it next time.”

“I’m willing to put in the work,” Kaidan’s eyes smoldered; curled his fingers behind Shepard’s neck. Ben’s knees still shook, and when Kaidan’s hand slid down his body to his hip, he winced and collapsed onto him in a heap.

“Sorry,” he panted, rolling his face into Kaidan’s chest. His teeth were clenched. “Wrenched it with position we were in…” he tried gamely to laugh it off. “You wanted it hard and I wanted to do it for you, but… I just got carried away with… holding you like that.”

His eyes met Kaidan’s, and Kaidan seemed to squeeze a shuddering sigh out of him. He let his tongue lightly trace the outside of Shepard’s ear.

“Ben, I’m gonna be sore tomorrow,” he whispered. “And I’m not asking for an apology.”

He curled into Kaidan and leaned up into another deep kiss. It wasn’t long, though, before Kaidan’s hand caressing his body were smoothing over goosebumps. Shepard had begun to shiver.

“Getting cold?”

“Yeah,” Shepard rolled himself tighter into the warmth of Kaidan’s body. “All that sweat evaporating, I guess.”

“Yeah, let’s get you warmed up…”

“First let me get a towel, clean us up a bit.”

“Don’t bother. Tub?”

“Even better.” He stood and helped Kaidan to his feet, swatting his backside as they made for the tub.

“This was a great evening, Ben.” Kaidan said as the two soaked together a moment later.

“Doesn’t have to be over…” Shepard had sunk down so that his chin was on the water line, smiling content in the hot bath.

“Call me an old man,” his eyes were closed, head leaning back against the edge of the tub, “but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be able to get it up again for a while.”

Shepard guffawed.

“I meant it’s still pretty early. We could… catch a vid or something? Just not the new Blasto.”

“Is Blasto 7 out yet?” Kaidan yawned.

“I hope not.”

“I thought you liked Blasto?”

“It’s a long story. Tell you later.” He sank beneath the water and emerged a moment later, wiping the water out of his eyes and smoothing back his hair.

“Y’know, this is our first actual date,” Kaidan pulled Shepard in by the shoulder.

“What about Apollo’s?”

“Nope. Sanity check, remember?”

“Ah. Right.” Shepard’s mouth twisted to one side, “…I did have a real date night planned.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t want you thinking I’m a cheap date! I had planned…” he waved his hand idly in the air. “Stuff…  we could do.”

“Oh really? Sorry if I ruined things, with all that home cookin’ business.”

“Are you kidding? I got to have my fill of a fine Canadian delicacy, and also ate some great food.” He gave Kaidan a lascivious smirk.

“Shepard… you…” he broke out laughing, slipping underwater before emerging again, droplets caught in his stubble glistening in the pale light from below. “You make it hard to take you seriously sometimes.”

“And you used to think I was _too_ serious.”

“Well, a week on the Citadel with you cured me of that.”

“I’m glad.”

They kissed and Kaidan leaned back into Shepard, who tangled his fingers in Kaidan’s wet hair, brushing a dripping lock off his forehead.

“I guess we should do something,” Kaidan sighed, tipping his head to allow Shepard to kiss his neck. “The Normandy retrofit will be done day after tomorrow. We’re heading off right away, right?”

“Yeah. Heard from Hackett.” Shepard left his lips pressed to Kaidan’s skin, shoulders drooping just a little. “The fleet’s just about assembled.”

“Had to end some time, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Shepard crooked his hand around Kaidan’s waist and pulled the man into him. “We don’t _have_ to go out. We could just stay here and talk if you wanted?”

“Would’ve thought you’d gotten bored with all the talking.”

“Talking to you? Never.”

“So you’ve never dreaded me saying the phrase ‘I’ve just been thinking about something?’”

“Long as you don’t say it during sex…” He playfully nipped at Kaidan’s shoulder.

“Come on Shepard, I know I’m a boring guy. You don’t need to flatter me. Crowds aren’t my thing usually and you’ve been… you’ve just been really great at handling that. But I know you like a little night-life once in a while, and I’m willing to go for that.”

“You’re kidding, right?” He sat up straighter in the water, turned Kaidan’s head to meet his eyes. “You’ve spent more time in the arena this week with me than doing anything else. Besides, you’re stable. I like that. I haven’t had a lot of that in my life.”

Kaidan searched his eyes for a moment before shrugging.

“…I can work with that, too.”

“Why don’t we dry off and you can keep reading me that book?” Shepard asked.

“Mm. Sounds like a ‘stable’ evening.”

“Exactly.”

“Count me in,” Kaidan brought Shepard’s hand out of the water to kiss his palm gently. “We’re going to need to replace the sheets though, after that…”

Not long after, they had settled into bed with fresh sheets, again with Shepard dozing on Kaidan’s chest.

The main characters in _World of Wonders_ gathered together on a single large bed to reflect on the life of Magnus Eisengrim, the magician whose life was the subject of the novel.

“ _People who think of beds only in terms of sexual exercise or sleep simply do not understand that a bed is the best of all places for a philosophical discussion, an argument, and if necessary a showdown.”_

Shepard rolled onto his belly, put his hand on Kaidan’s.

“Let’s save the ending.”

“For when?” Kaidan blinked, “In a few days we’re going to be raiding the Illusive Man’s base.”

“We’ll… find some time. I want to make sure we still make time for each other when we’re back in the thick of it.”

“Okay. We’re only twenty pages from the end…”

“Great, so we’ll definitely have time once we’re back on the Normandy,” he settled his chin on Kaidan’s breastbone. “I want to bring a piece of shore leave back on the ship with me. I know that as soon as I get back on the Normandy, I’m going to get wrapped up in battle prep. Need to remind myself what’s waiting on the other side of this thing.”

“I won’t let you forget.” Kaidan cupped his cheek.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

They stretched out on the bed and rearranged some of the pillows, settling back as they had been, except that Shepard had tangled his legs with Kaidan’s under the sheets.

“It’s crazy to think about,” Kaidan laid the data-pad aside, “Took me _forever_ to read the first two books in this series. Now I’ve read the third one in just a few days.”

“Helps to have some off-time to catch up.”

“It helps to have someone to read it to.” He yawned and stroked his fingers through Shepard’s hair, “So, what’s this about you suddenly not liking Blasto movies?”

Shepard rolled his eyes, drummed a couple slaps on his belly.

“Javik called me down to the strip the other day. Said he’d been invited to become involved in a vid to help the war effort. I couldn’t believe he’d actually agree to something like that, but he wanted me along for moral support. I suppose.”

“And?”

“Turns out they were shooting the next Blasto movie. They wanted Javik as a cameo. The ‘Prothean frozen in a refrigerator.’”

“…I bet he was pretty pissed!”

“Nothing a little biotic throw couldn’t fix,” Shepard grunted ruefully. “They wanted me to play myself when I showed up. I might have gotten in a fight with Blasto the Jellyfish…”

“You what?” Kaidan snorted.

“I stole his gun,” he frowned. “He was sort of an ass, in person.”

“Alright. So no more Blasto. Got it,” Kaidan was trying to suppress his laughter.

“Wasn’t just that,” Shepard shifted on Kaidan’s chest. “It was strange to see everything they say about me in the news reduced into a caricature. Run in with a gun and fix the problem, with a Hanar who didn’t want to share the screen time.”

“Yeah,” Kaidan gave Shepard’s arm a squeeze. “That sounds pretty… surreal, actually.”

They lay in silence for a few moments before Shepard’s eyes went wide, he turned, stared up at Kaidan.

“Oh, Kaidan,” Shepard nuzzled into his chest, smile dripping with saccharine mischief. “Yesterday, Liara was saying something about ‘filtering Spectre slash fic off the extranet…’ What’s that about?”

Kaidan groaned, rubbing his palms down his face.

“Of _course_ you remembered that!”

“You did say you would tell me later…”

“Apparently,” Kaidan began after a tortured sigh, “—and I wasn’t looking for this or anything: Col Vedirus, that salarian Spec—yeah, you know who he is. Well, _he_ showed this to me—there are a bunch of excited… extranet… _fans_ who write stories about the Spectres.”

Shepard blinked.

“And, uh…” Kaidan swallowed. “They have whole communities set up that write about… these Spectres…”

Shepard leaned in. Kaidan rolled his eyes.

“…they write about them getting in romantic relationships. With each other. Sex. The whole nine-yards.”

Shepard’s brows scrunched down, eyes narrowing. He slowly combed a crease in the sheets between his fingers: hardcoding new data.

“That…” He looked at Kaidan severely, bit his lip. “…is _incredible!_ ”

“Yeah, it’s—wait, what?”

“Do they write about you and me?” He practically bounced forward in the bed, hands on Kaidan’s side. His eyes were bright and wide, and Kaidan looked taken aback.

“Actually, they do. I guess we’re, uh… the most popular couple…” He bit his lip when Shepard guffawed into the pillow, “Col says that, I guess, there are some die-hard fans that have been pairing us up for years and uh… there’s been a lot more since I became a Spectre. What are you doing?”

“I need to look this up!” Shepard was already up on his elbows and flipping through his omni-tool.

“…actually,” Kaidan closed his eyes. “…Col gave me a complete download of all the stories on record.”

Shepard gawked.

“Well? Let’s hear some!”

“What!? No!”

“Come on, Kaidan,” Shepard grinned, “You obviously already read some.” He ran a hand up Kaidan’s thigh beneath the sheets, “And you _definitely_ don’t have anything to worry about with the way they portray you…”

“I can’t believe you, sometimes.”

“What? We’re saving the end of _World of Wonders_ , so we can read this instead…” He kissed Kaidan’s neck, nibbled up his chin to whisper in his ear: “I want to hear your sexy voice reading all about what the galaxy thinks we’re doing behind closed doors.”

“Jeez, Shepard,” Kaidan huffed, now leaning away from Shepard, now leaning into him, “You sound like the version of yourself from one of the stories in here…”

“So you _have_ read them!”

“Not all of them, no, there’s thousands—wait, I know what you’re trying to do and it won’t work…” Kaidan stuttered when Shepard began teasing the fine line of hair below his navel. Regardless, Kaidan opened his omni-tool and began scrolling through the folder. “See, there’s so many.”

Shepard scooched up to read from the display.

“ _Captain’s Holiday: shore leave goes awry when Spectres Shepard and Alenko get trapped below the ice on a frozen moon. Years of training and months of yearning tell them exactly how to stay warm…_ ” Shepard read. “That’s amazing! It’s 80,000 words! Do we fall in love in that one, or just fuck?”

“I haven’t _read_ that one, Shepard! There’s—“

“— _A Fistful of Shepards: after passing through a spatial anomaly, Commander Shepard has been duplicated 32 times! Only Major Alenko can tell which is the real Commander Shepard—by taste!_ ”

“Oh god…”

“Do you think you could tell?” Shepard beamed at Kaidan, “Tell which one was me by taste? Do you think you figure me out in the story?”

“It’s _not_ ‘you and me’ in the story, Shepard! They’re characters. By people who’ve seen a couple pictures of us on the extranet… if even that much!”

“A _lot_ of pictures…” Shepard scrolled through the list of reference shots credited by the holosculptor who made the meshes.

“Shepard. Ben,” Kaidan pulled his omni-tool away from Shepard’s face. “Are you okay with this?”

“Umm,” Shepard blinked, “Yes? Why… would it bother me?”

“Because we’re people, Ben! Isn’t it a little weird that there are people out there making vids about us… fucking around in the cargo bay—stop smiling—and… doing all kinds of stuff?”

“It’s not the worst thing people are going to do or _have_ done with my… image.”

“But what we do in the war, that’s all gonna be history! What we do in private…?”

“They don’t _know_ what we do in private, Kaidan,” Shepard shrugged. “They just like to imagine we _have_ a private life. That’s a comfort to me. I have plenty of people who see me as a ‘legend.’ It’s nice to see some people see me as a man, too. Or a horny pervert, even. Or think about us kissing in the snow, or getting lost on a hike and spending the night, or falling in love all over the galaxy in different times.”

Kaidan sighed.

“It still feels invasive to me, a little bit. To imagine that many people… doing god-knows-what with those videos—stop grinning. I’m… trying to be serious,” he cracked a smile.

“There’s plenty of pictures of your ass on the extranet, Kaidan, without the courtesy of writing a narrative and dialogue to go along with it. I hate to tell you this, but.”

“Yeah, ugh.” Kaidan’s head thumped back into his pillow, but Shepard scooched up to look down into his eyes.

“What matters is if you feel comfortable, Kaidan. That’s all I want. If you think all this is too weird, then I won’t push it. I’m fine with it, but you don’t have to agree with me.”

“It’s weird so many people—who don’t even _know_ we’re seeing each other—have put so much thought into our relationship when I haven’t even given it that much thought…” He couldn’t quite meet Shepard’s eye, and Ben stroked a hand down his torso: hardcoding.

“Maybe that’s what I like about it?” He admitted at last, “I have a feeling the Ben Shepard in those stories is a little more… rounded… would love to see what moves he pulls on Major Alenko to get together with him,” he grinned. “I should take notes.”

“You’re always taking notes,” Kaidan touched his face, pressed his lips to Shepard’s. “And in _some_ of these, you’ve got a pretty one-track mind…”

++

Despite Kaidan’s protests, they were soon scrolling through the lists of titles together. Sometimes Shepard and Kaidan would guffaw at a title together. Other times, Ben would look to Kaidan before making any sound at all, making a thoughtful ‘hmm’ at a title every once in a while. They alternated between watching the holo-vids and reading the documents that hadn’t been adapted yet.

> _“Shepard,” Kaidan said, removing his helmet. Long black locks spilled forth, curling dark hair down to the middle of the Major’s back. “I’ve returned from the survey mission to Brotius VII, nothing to report but high winds and interminable dust storms!” He flipped his hair dramatically, the gorgeous plaits shimmering in the suspiciously soft light aboard the Normandy’s command deck._
> 
> _“What a pity, I was so looking forward to a shore leave there,” Shepard stepped down from the command platform and took Kaidan’s hand gingerly in his own. He stared at Kaidan’s marvelous tresses as if the stars themselves were caught in them, rather than the dust of an alien world. “Come, my love, I have already run the bath. Let me wash your gorgeous hair for you. I’ve bought some new oils and perfumes which will make you radiant.”_

“Stop staring at me, Ben.” Kaidan was tight-lipped under Shepard’s scrutinizing gaze.

“Just wondering if you could pull it off...”

“I mean, yeah. I mean, probably, right? I don’t want to, but if I wanted I bet I could…”

++

> _“The thing is, Kaiden,” Shepherd wistfully said. “I did not ever want to be a soldier. Now that I run an asari orphanage, I am much happier with my life!”_
> 
> _“Oh Shepherd,” Kaiden stroked his goatee wistfully. “I am so glad to see you look so happy! It makes me exultant.”_
> 
> _“Yes, and I learn so much more from my girls than I ever learned from war,” he bubbled with a wistful gaze._
> 
> _“Now that you have made the galaxy to have galactic peace, all races are learning that peace is the true teacher of the heart!”_
> 
> _“It has taught my heart, Kaiden.” Shepherd felt wistful for a moment, “If only I had a partner to share the wonderment and joyfulness of my work!”_
> 
> _“Shepherd Shepherd Shepherd! I will be the partner of your business and also of your life! I love you!”_
> 
> _“Oh, Kaiden!”_

“An orphanage,” Shepard nodded slowly. “I’ve never… thought about that.”

“I don’t think there _are_ any asari orphanages.”

“I just think it’s the author’s intention to show me with a bunch of kids, an asari orphanage… is it supposed to be symbolic?”

“Shepard, they didn’t even spell our names right!”

“So?” Shepard shifted up, alert, “They’re trying to write a really meaningful piece of art, who cares if they spell our names wrong?”

“I… really don’t know if the author was…” Kaidan pinched his nose. “…thinking about symbolism…”

“Maybe,” Shepard elbowed him in the ribs, “But what’s _your_ interpretation?”

++

> _“I’m sorry, just having one of those clumsy days,” Shepard stooped down, the tucked in tail of his dress shirt almost popping out as he scrambled to pick up the clatter of dishes. The dark-haired stranger in an Alliance uniform stooped as well. “I guess I was so caught up on bussing these tables I never even noticed you, I hope I didn’t—“ he looked up, noticed the officer for the first time, the tightness of the uniform shirt across his chest, the handsome and sheepish smile. Shepard was smitten. “…get anything on your uniform.”_
> 
> _“No, it’s fine,” the stranger said, even taking some of the dishes out of Shepard’s hands as the two stood up. “It’s as much my fault as anything. I’ve got no excuse, either, since I was staring right at you when…” Shepard must have raised his eyebrows, because the stranger’s big whiskey eyes went wide. “That’s not… I mean, I didn’t mean…”_
> 
> _“It’s okay,” Shepard laughed it off for the soldier, but the slip of the tongue had made him a little hot under the collar._
> 
> _“Anyway, I’ll tell your boss it was all my fault, if he yells at you…”_
> 
> _“Oh, that won’t be a problem, I’m my own boss. This is my café. Name’s Ben Shepard, but my friends call me Benji.”_
> 
> _“Hi, umm, I’m Kaidan,” Kaidan shook his outstretched hand. “What do perfect strangers call you?”_
> 
> _“Wouldn’t know: haven’t met any. You can call me Benji,” Oh god, he might have winked! He could feel his ears turning pink._

“A café,” Shepard’s eyebrows were furrowed, staring at the holo-imagery which accompanied the text: an artist’s rendition of him in a prim white shirt and tie, looking absolutely bashful in the presence of a generously proportioned Kaidan Alenko.

“Less weird than the orphanage, huh?” Kaidan’s smile faded when he noticed the intense stare Shepard was directing at the image. “Hey, you okay, Ben? Did you… Do you want to own a café?”

“No,” Shepard shook his head slowly. “Seeing myself like this, though,” he tapped the image of himself hovering above Kaidan’s omni-tool. “It’s strange. These people see me capable of things I wouldn’t ever expect from myself. The idea that after everything in my life, the Reds, Akuze. That I could just open a café on Illium?”

“Do you think…” Kaidan seemed to take a moment. “What are you feeling?”

“Good,” Shepard said after a moment. “It’s good, I’m glad they can see me that way. I like reading about you like that, too. The Alliance man.” He kissed the corner of Kaidan’s mouth.

“I wish real soldiers could be that… clean-cut,” Kaidan smiled into the kiss. “So… if you like that _kind_ of story, then I think I know one you might like…”

++

An hour later, Kaidan was dashing up the stairs—still in the buff—brandishing a big platter of scrambled eggs and two forks.

“They’re just about to kiss, I think,” Shepard called out into the hallway.

“Did you pause it? Pause it!”

> _Shepard and Kaidan danced for a long time, and the image allowed them their space, an original composition by the author playing them across the dance floor._
> 
> _“I’m having a really good time, Kaidan.”_
> 
> _“Me too,” Kaidan took the collar of Shepard’s suit in trembling hands, straightened out the crease, smoothed his hands down the lapels._

“Kiss!”

“Kiss!”

++

Once the eggs were finished and they’d skimmed a half dozen other stories, including a particularly risqué treatment where occasionally Kaidan or Shepard would slip up and call himself ‘this one,’ they lay together in the dark, Shepard spooned up against Kaidan’s back. When he wriggled back with a contented sigh, Kaidan gave a soft chuckle.

“You’re affectionate tonight.”

“It’s been a nice date-night,” Shepard murmured into the crook of his arm. “And I’ve been listening to you say sweet things all night.”

“Wasn’t _me_ saying them.”

“…I guess.”

Kaidan drew his arms tighter around Shepard.

“I can’t believe we watched so many of those. Read so many, too. Col’s gonna laugh his ass off if he hears.”

“Feel a little bit better about them?”

“I don’t know,” Kaidan kissed Shepard’s shoulder. “I still don’t like thinking that people are writing who they _think_ I am. And that other people probably accept that as truth.”

“Mmm. I guess my biography will have to set the record straight,” Shepard smiled in the dark.

“Can’t wait,” Kaidan conceded. He yawned, let his forehead rest against Shepard’s hair, “So are you ready to throw one hell of a party tomorrow?”

“Oh yeah.” Shepard grinned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Citadel DLC - Party


	35. The Difference between a New Life and an Old Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Citadel party wears on into the evening, Shepard reflects back on shore leave before returning to the Normandy the next morning. Loose ends are tied up.

“Hey, everyone!” Shepard called, “Come over here for a minute! Let’s get a photo to remember this, arrange yourselves on the sofa.”

“An excellent suggestion, Shepard.” EDI immediately swept down from the kitchen.

“Great idea, I want a copy!” Liara remarked, striding into the room.

The party collapsed around the living room sofa. Steve had sat in the middle of the sofa near Shepard, but scrambled up when Kaidan moved to stand behind the couch.

“Aww no, Kaidan. I know your tricks! This time you _have_ to be next to Shepard!” Kaidan didn’t object, and plopped down beside the Commander.

“Thanks for coming, everyone. Here’s to us! Ready Glyph?” Shepard called out, wrapping an arm around Kaidan’s shoulder.

The floating drone appeared around the fireplace.

“Of course. If you could all please direct your attention this way.”

“Okay. Everyone say: ‘Normandy’” Shepard gave Kaidan’s shoulder a little squeeze.

“Really, Shepard?” He rolled his eyes, leaned forward with a chuckle.

“What?”

The humans and Garrus seemed to understand, stretching out the final syllable, though the inebriated aliens among the crew exuberantly shouted the name of their ship in a rush and stared blankly at the drone.

As it happened, only Shepard and Kaidan were smiling by the time Glyph illuminated the tableau with a flash.

And they were smiling at each other.

“Portrait complete.” Glyph stated

“What, that was it?” Traynor asked “Shouldn’t there be a click or something?”

“I have no moving parts which would cause—“

“Oh never mind! So when can we see it?”

“Glyph,” Shepard said, standing up, “Why don’t you upload it to the screen in the other room?”

“Right away, Commander.”

“Then maybe get some candids?” Shepard called after Glyph, before settling back into Kaidan—still snickering—on the couch.

Glyph turned around and immediately flashed a picture of Shepard.

“Glyph, no. Other people. Go.”

“Right away, Commander.”

The party once again wandered off to different areas of the apartment; and talking, snacking, and dancing resumed. Kaidan drifted off as well, called to the other room by some commotion Wrex was starting.

Shepard yawned and remained on the couch for a while, and the party seemed to spin away and ignore him. His hands brushed gently over the soft fabric of the sofas Kaidan had purchased for the apartment: hardcoding the waning celebrations to memory. Kaidan appeared again for a few moments and—after being cajoled in furtive conversation with Liara and Traynor—Glyph hovered back over to snap a shot of the two laughing stupidly on the couch.

Then Kaidan wandered off to get some water, and Shepard paced from room to room, letting his fingers run along the walls as he walked, taking in the texture of the banisters and the cabinets and the paneling. Watching his friends laugh carefree all around his home.

Hardcoding.

As usual, he was virtually invisible to his crew until he deliberately engaged them, and he seemed to have no interest in doing so just now. He wandered upstairs eventually. Samara had rejoined the party and was discussing asari life-spans with James, who was listening attentively even through a whiskey-soaked expression. There was the sound of laser blasts from Shepard’s room, and he entered to find Kaidan sitting on the edge of the bed, watching an old action vid on the screen.

“Oh, hey, Shepard.”

“Cut out of the party early, huh?”

“Yeah, I managed to piss Traynor off somehow and realized that probably I was getting a little too sloshed for company. Crowd was getting to me anyway.” He tapped his temple.

“So… you’re watching a vid?”

“Yeah, I found some popcorn in the pantry.” He held up the bowl full of popcorn, “And I remembered we were talking about _Race Against Time-Space_ the other night, check it out! I found it on the extranet.”

Shepard looked at the screen, where two attractive humans in unsafe looking space suits brandished ray guns against an off-screen foe. “Huh. Whaddaya know?”

“You’ve really never seen this? It was one of my favorites as a kid. I just wanted to check to see if I could find it, but then I started watching, and… well…”

Shepard chuckled and sat against the headboard, Kaidan scooching back to join him with the popcorn bowl. Shepard dug his hand into the bowl, holding the handful to his face as the scene on the vid-screen erupted into a special effects extravaganza.

“So what’s going on now?”

Kaidan recounted the plot in the kind of detail that could only come from a nostalgic adoration of the film. Shepard responded to the setup with many ‘huh’s, but in spite of that, settled in with his arm around Kaidan to watch the rest of the vid.

“Sounds like the party’s still on, out there, huh?” Kaidan said softly, looking away from the screen to Shepard.

“Hm? Yeah. Sounds like Traynor’s been giving Glyph some tips on music selection.”

“People staying the night?”

“Some of them probably will. I made the announcement that anyone was welcome to divvy up the bedrooms how they wanted.”

James voice rang down the corridor:

“Trust me, this hot tub is _definitely_ big enough for all of us! I saw it when I was in here the other day.”

“I’m telling you, kid,” Zaeed replied as their voices got closer, “I spent the whole night rigging it to explode, and that thing’s got room for maybe you and your boyfriend, max. And why would you want more than that anyway, eh?”

“Mr. Vega wishes he had a boyfriend like me.”

“The more the better, and _you_ wish, Esteban.”

Kaidan slipped his shoulder out from under Shepard’s arm when James, Garrus, Zaeed, and Cortez abruptly turned the corner into the master bedrooms.

“Oh… _Loco_ … Major. Sorry, didn’t know anyone was in here.”

“It _is_ my bedroom,” Shepard replied, quirking an eyebrow.

“You guys came to check out the hot tub?” Kaidan pointed toward the bathroom.

“Did I hear somebody say hot-tub?” Traynor called from the main staircase.

The group filed into the bathroom, Traynor coming up from behind.

“Okay, so it’s smaller than I remember,” James said, “But there’s still room for… most of us, I think.”

“And I wonder who you’ll be inviting, James,” Garrus remarked, folding his arms “You, Miranda, maybe Samara, Liara.”

“Let’s face it, Scars, we definitely can’t get the krogans in here, Tali’s not gonna be taking off her suit for a soak, starts to narrow our options down. But, eh, Traynor. Bet you’d appreciate a good bath in this tub, huh?”

“You mean _another_ good bath in that tub.”

“Wait, what?” Cortez said.

“Hey,” Zaeed croaked coming back into the bedroom “This is _Race Against Time-Space_ , ain’t it? This is my favorite vid.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of this, with the… uh… robot spider at the end?” James stepped into the room.

“Come on, Vega! Shepard’s never seen it!” Kaidan yelled.

“My dad got me a John Foster action figure when I was a really little kid. Didn’t even see the movie till I was 12.” Cortez crossed his arms, and the room fell silent as the protagonists removed their helmets, gazing tearfully at the ruins of an ancient city.

“ _Keelah_ , so here’s where the party is!” Tali tipped into the room. The room broke out into a chorus of shushing and Tali held up her hands. “Is this… no, this isn’t _Fleet and Flotilla_. What is this? Is it a love story?”

“The protagonists get it on before the end,” Zaeed answered.

“ _Esse_ , you heard the Major! Don’t go giving away the story.”

“Shepard’s a smart guy, he knows they’re gonna fuck! Wasn’t born yesterday…”

Tali turned back and walked to the balcony, her artificially amplified voice echoing back into the bedroom: “Hey, everybody! We’re all watching a movie in Shepard’s room! It’s really good!” The people remaining in the room seemed to take that as their cue to sit down.

“Tali,” Shepard chuckled as she returned, “You don’t even know it’s a good movie yet.”

“Bah! I’m too drunk to care.” She shoved Shepard over and sat next to him on the bed. Kaidan laughed and handed the bowl of popcorn to Vega, who had been eyeing it up since he sat in the corner of the room.

Before long, the entire party was packed into Shepard’s room, some reclining on the bed, a few with chairs they dragged from elsewhere in the house, most on the floor.

“Wait,” Miranda shifted her weight and pointed to the screen “So they have a… a light speed tunnel or whatever… but they still travel using the conventional FTL drives?”

“The time dilation of traveling at those speeds would be ridiculous,” Javik uttered dispassionately.

“That’s the _point,_ ” Jacob said, “If they use the Light Tunnel, they might be stranded outside the galaxy, but if they keep traveling using the Omega Drives, they always arrive too late to help.”

“Subtext, sweetheart...” Zaeed eyes never left the screen.

“So this war has been going on for millions of years…?” Grunt said slowly.

“The Lethotrons have been spreading across the galaxy at sub-luminal speeds for millennia. In attempting to abate the destruction, the crew of the Excalibur—“

“Yeah, EDI, Grunt doesn’t really care.” Jack retorted sarcastically.

“I am only watching this vid on the promise of giant robotic spiders.” Javik said from his cushion at the foot of the bed.

Beer bottles were collecting on the floor and all around the bed, the crew members bickering in hissing whispers whose turn it was to go get more from the fridge. As the vid ratcheted up the explosions coming into the third act, Kaidan nuzzled Shepard’s ear.

“Sorry about this,” he whispered, “Had kinda hoped it would just be the two of us.”

Shepard kissed him on the top of the head and whispered back: “It’s sort of nice. Everybody focused on something other than the Reapers. Besides, the night’s still young.” He laid his head on Kaidan’s shoulder.

A half hour later, the protagonists kissed, the rings of a distant gas giant forming a rainbow behind them as the screen faded to black, credits rolling.

“So… the way to defeat the Lethotrons was… responsible eezo handling legislation?” Liara puzzled aloud.

“I’m telling you, it’s subtext!” Zaeed insisted.

“Sure, just like they had to decide whether or not to keep using the Omega Drives or to attempt the dangerous Light Tunnel, mankind has to grapple with whether they’re going to risk the unknown or continue to attempt terraforming without it.” Steve said.

“But… the tunnelly thing was powerful enough to move the whole planet Earth… _behind_ where the Lethotrons had already attacked?” asked Tali.

Steve’s brow knitted in confusion, “Yeah… ummm…”

“I admit, I am also lost,” Samara broke in. “What was the significance of the Subspace Scrolls?”

“Man, I liked this vid a lot more when I thought it was just about giant robot spiders.” James threw his hands in the air.

“Well hang on,” Kaidan said, startling Shepard on his shoulder, “Now, the movie is actually really different. In the novel the Light Tunnel worked completely differently, and the Malchizorean Flood—“

“ _Keelah_ , what the hell is the Makizoonean Flood?”

“It’s the unseen enemy they’re fighting… they…” Kaidan stuttered, “They weren’t called ‘Lethotrons’ in the book. Anyway, well, the whole thing with eezo legislation made a lot more sense. But the point is they get back to Earth at the end only to find that it was devastated by the Malchizorean Flood millions of years ago, because of the time dilation. And so then they use the Light Tunnel to flee the galaxy, and you find out that—“ He glanced about uncomfortably as everyone stared, “They… join the Flood… because… it’s all refugees… of…”

“NERD!” Tali hooted.

“So they never end up saving Earth? What the hell kind of an ending is that?” Miranda cried.

“What’s the point of everything they went through if they don’t get a happy ending?” Garrus shook his head.

“That’s the point, it’s about eezo legislation, the author was saying that there _is_ no happy ending in real life,” Jeff said, surfacing from his alcohol induced stupor briefly.

“That’s why I watch vids, dammit.” Zaeed said.

“It seems pretty unfair that they work so hard and still Earth gets destroyed.” Traynor broke in. A grave silence settled on the room, friends exchanging horrified looks.

Wrex finally spoke up.

“…shit… who picked this fuckin’ vid?”

“What an uncomfortable reminder.” Liara leaned back against the headboard next to Kaidan.

“I guess we’re back in the war tomorrow, huh?” Steve said, scratching the back of his neck.

“We’ve got another day before we go knocking on the Illusive Man’s door, right? Because I’m going to have a hangover the size of Vega’s ego tomorrow.” Joker slumped his head onto EDI’s shoulder.

“…think they’ll make a vid about us?” James asked, stroking his chin.

“It’ll probably be mostly about Shepard,” Garrus quipped.

Shepard rolled his eyes and folded his arms.

“Oh, but Garrus, who could they even get to _play_ you?”

“Parvas Loraan!” Tali shouted, “He’d look pretty sexy with your scars, Garrus.”

“Parvas? That’s it, Tali. You’ve got to stop watching _Fleet and Flotilla_ ,” Garrus shot back.

“Anyone could play you, eh Sparks? How does that work with quarian actors, you know, how can you tell… like… you could just lend any actor your suit and they could be you…”

“Bah! Nobody but me could fill out the hips in this suit, eh Shepard?” She purred into Shepard’s ear before dissolving into giggles.

“Okay Major,” Vega continued “Who would you want to play you? Whoever they could convince to wear that much hair-gel, heh? Heh?”

“Hey!” Joker suddenly lifted his head, “Don’t tease him about that! You don’t know what he has to go through… you don’t know…” he laid his head back on EDI’s shoulder “…muscles…” he continued to mumble as EDI softly patted his head.

“Jeff is—and I believe the term is—a ‘sad drunk,’” EDI supplied.

Liara stared down at her folded hands.

“Unfortunately, we have to win first.”

The room was quiet for a moment until Kaidan spoke.

“We will. Starting tomorrow.”

“Cerberus has the Catalyst…” Liara started, but Kaidan took her hand.

“Doesn’t matter. We go wreck Cerberus. Then we go to Earth, stop the Reapers.”

 “The End,” Shepard smiled.

“Once and for all.” Kaidan looked around the room, “We made it this far together, everyone’s done their part, now we finish it.”

Miranda got to her feet.

“Hard to argue with your confidence, even if I think you’re all crazy. But I’ll drink to that.”

“So would I, if there’s any of that dextro swill left,” Garrus rose as well. The party all got to their feet, talking and laughing loudly as they left the bedroom, Glyph turning the music back on as they descended the stairs. It wasn’t long before the whooping and hollering of the party was back in full swing. Kaidan and Shepard had remained where they were seated on the bed, beer bottles littering the floor. Shepard let his arm slide down from Kaidan’s shoulders to his waist.

“That was pretty inspiring, Major,” he smirked.

“You’re not the only one who can snap into ‘military mode’ when he needs to.” Kaidan ran a hand up Shepard’s chest underneath his leather jacket.

“So you didn’t believe what you said?”

“No, I do. But things aren’t usually so simple for me.” He kissed Shepard’s neck, “But I believe in you.”

“Mm. I like where this party’s going.” Shepard said, eyes closing as Kaidan’s tongue traced his jawline up to his ear. “Thanks for keeping the mood up. Inspiring moves like that, maybe I should just give you the Normandy, eh Major?” he flinched when Kaidan lightly bit his earlobe.

“Naw. Don’t worry, Commander, you’re position’s not in jeopardy.” He chuckled.

“Mm. Speaking of positions, I don’t feel like being the boss right now… so…” Shepard grinned slyly and shuffled down the bed, unbuckling Kaidan’s belt.

Kaidan gasped as Shepard palmed him through his uniform.

“I think Javik is passed-out in the bathroom.”

“Uh-huh.” Shepard looked up at him as he ran his tongue up the length of Kaidan’s rapidly hardening shaft.

“Everyone’s outside.” He stroked the side of Shepard’s face.

“Yeah,” Shepard nuzzled into the musculature of Kaidan’s adonis’ belt, “How does that make you feel?”

Kaidan swallowed.

“Pretty hot.”

“Great answer.” Shepard swallowed Kaidan to the base.

Kaidan groaned and his head lolled to the side on the edge of the bed; he reached down and lifted up a data-pad that was sitting on the floor.

“Where the hell did this data-pad come from?”

Shepard, mouth still full, batted it out of Kaidan’s hand and it clattered to the floor, and once again he claimed Kaidan’s full attention.

With a muted growl, Kaidan rolled Shepard overand straddled his chest, pinning his arms above his head. He mirrored the feral smile on Shepard’s face.

“I thought you said you didn’t feel like being in charge tonight?”

++

Morning came too quickly.

After Kaidan had sprung from his bed, Shepard found the discarded data-pad on the floor. It was from Mordin. He listened to the hardboiled Omega tale as he brushed his teeth in the bathroom and made his rounds. The crew was still recovering: James was cooking in the kitchen, thronged by a coterie of hungry comrades. EDI looked strangely pleased with herself, further apart from the crowd than usual. When Cortez joked with her about she had been doing all night, she responded simply that she had begun an ‘art project.’ Nobody was sure, yet, if she was joking, but Samantha immediately began searching the extranet for photos of herself.

Listening through the rest of Mordin’s message had taken some of the glitter out of Shepard’s smile, and he pecked Kaidan on the cheek, whispering that he needed to take a walk. He would meet them back at the docking bay.

The strip was the same this morning as it was last night. The dim streets, the blazing neon, the holographic trees all stood exactly as they had when Shepard had stepped off the transport at the start of his shore leave.

That was the Wards, in a nutshell. The Presidium had its artificial day and night cycle—the veneer of respectability, an acknowledgement that time was passing—but the wards were a permanent twilight zone. The light from the Widow filtered through the clouds of dust and gas like sunlight streaming through the ocean waves high above.

Shepard walked from one side of the strip to the other, then back again. Past his name at the top of the Armax Arena board. Past the broken Towers of Hanoi game at the arcade. Past the sushi restaurant and its shattered floor. The sky cars whisked by overhead like so many iridescent fish.

The Wards never slept, just like the city Shepard was born in. He blended in on the city streets: even in the N7 leather jacket, no one gave him a second glance. Even when he walked like the soldier he had become and not the lithe teen who had cultivated his own invisibility in the streets, everyone was busy with something else.

Shepard eventually took a sky car up to the Presidium, parking quite a ways from Docking Bay D24 and making his way there slowly on foot.

The trees were real, the people going from office to office were yawning, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. The false ribbon of sky was a blazing blue. The sky cars up here flew instead of swam.

He strolled up to Apollo’s, over to the table he and Kaidan had shared just about every evening since shore leave began. It was Kaidan’s table: _that_ table. Recent demolition ensured that the skyline up the horizon of the Presidium ring was still dotted with twists of black smoke.

Of course, Shepard wound up in the lobby of docking bay D24. He leaned against the railing, watching Zakera Ward reach out into the blue glow of the Serpent Nebula and point the way back to Earth. Back to war.

“Shepard?” It was Miranda, coming up from behind. She leaned back against the railing, arms crossed. There was certainly no sign at all that what little sleep she had had last night had been spent slumped in a recliner. “I’m glad I caught you before I left. I thought you might be up here.”

“Left the party early this morning, Miranda?”

“Tempting as James’ huevos rancheros looked, I slipped out before breakfast was served.” She idly scratched her collarbone. “I’m not really one for goodbyes.”

“And this is…?”

“You’ve got me there. Alright, I’m not very _good_ at goodbyes.”

“I think you’re doing just fine so far,” Shepard pushed himself off the railing, then leaned back against it, copying Miranda’s posture. “That’s what you said about roulette the other night, if you remember.”

“Plenty of wine and the craziest Alliance soldier in the galaxy as an escort made _that_ a lot easier,” she shook her head with a smile.

“Well, there’s no wine, but…” When he caught her eye he gave her a wink and she laughed.

“Shepard, I came because there was something I wanted to tell you one more time,” she cleared her throat. “You asked me a few days ago if I had any knowledge about your clone. And I don’t. I mean, I didn’t. I know that must be hard to believe—“

“No,” Shepard interjected simply. “I believe you.”

“…well. I wanted to tell you that, in the early stages of the Lazarus project, the idea _did_ come up. There were people who debated which would be the… more _real_ Commander Shepard. A clone would be fully human—organic, I mean—in a way that your reanimated body never would be.”

“I thought you said the Illusive Man wanted _me_.”

“He did,” she nodded, “But he’s not capricious. And he’s not superstitious. None of us were the sort of people to believe that there was something intrinsically about your exact body that _it_ had to be brought back. The odds of regaining your memories in this body were the same as a successful transfer of the memories into a cloned brain. Plenty of people wanted to bring back… you—your body—as a tribute. As if it’d be rude not to, if we had the technology. The arguments wore on, and the Illusive Man got impatient and made the call.”

“Doesn’t sound like good enough reasoning, for you.”

“It wasn’t,” she admitted. A keeper was pacing from panel to panel, calling up arcane diagnostic protocols. “There was an argument: creating a clone would constitute creating a new life. Repairing your body wouldn’t amount to the same thing, not really. It wouldn’t have the same… responsibility. I couldn’t have admitted it at the time—I thought I was doing what the Illusive Man told me—but when I think back about it, that was the argument that won me over. I didn’t want to be responsible for creating a new Shepard. A new life.”

“So you backed the fixer-upper, instead?” Shepard smiled lightly, Miranda couldn’t quite meet his eye.

“’Fixer-upper,’ Shepard?” she smiled. “You sound like Kaidan.”

“…really?”

“But yes, I did,” she continued, not hearing. “It was the harder choice by a long shot. And more expensive. And you’ve got so many synthetic parts in you between all the governing VIs and all that plenty on the project team started to wonder if it was worth it.”

“Thank you for saving me, Miranda.”

“I joked the other day that no one would want to take over your life,” she ran a hand through her hair, and the dark curls fell back at once into their easy, tumbled style. “You’ve had a hard life. And we brought you back to an even harder one. I did what I did for the galaxy, not for you. And I would do it again without compunction. But sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t have been better for you… with everything that’s happened. All the suffering. The sacrifices you’ve had to make…”

“Miranda,” he touched her arm. “No. It’s better to be brought back.”

She searched his eyes for a moment, then nodded firmly, placed her hand over Shepard’s.

“In spite of everything, you’ve made a life worth envying, Shepard. I admire you for that.” She seemed to chew her tongue for a moment, rolled her eyes, “And, for what it’s worth, I don’t consider myself your creator or anything like that.”

Shepard guffawed turning back to lean on the railing. Miranda joined him this time, watching as the light of the Widow broke over the point of Kithoi Ward and flooded the room with something like a deep, blue sunrise.

“Too bad,” Shepard shivered in the draft from the airlock opening and closing, “Wouldn’t mind a tune-up from Project Lazarus about now.”

“Too late,” she smirked, “I work for the Alliance now. Well. Sort of. They just don’t know I work for them yet.”

“Mm.” Shepard zipped his jacket, but the shivering barely subsided.

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he tried to wave it off. “Just… since I ran into Leviathan I’ve been cold almost all the time. I’m worried that it might have done something to me. Permanent damage.”

“Shepard, have you talked to Doctor Chakwas about this?”

“Haven’t talked to anyone about it,” Shepard chuckled. “Except Kaidan. The cold wouldn’t bother me much. And I had plenty of nightmares before, too. But I’m worried it’s the sign of something else. I want to make sure I’m put together for K—for the raid on Cerberus. For Earth.”

“When I get back, I’ll start seeing what I can do,” her eyebrows were knit together in a worried stare.

“Too late,” he shrugged. “We’re heading straight for Cronos Station. We’ll be there day after tomorrow.”

“I wish you would’ve brought this up sooner, Shepard,” she shook her head. “Instead of going to a stupid casino we could’ve been—“

“No, I needed the casino. We both did. And we deserved it, too.” The two watched the sun peak fully around Kithoi point, turning the ships cruising into port into long black ribbons of shadow cast against the rays of light. Shepard chuckled all at once, “You know, I’ve spent all my life watching people, trying to read the signals. Later on, trying to do what I thought was ‘right.’ Talking to Leviathan, hearing about how long the galaxy has been making the same mistakes over and over again. Should have been terrifying, but it wasn’t. We’re pretty predictable.”

“I suppose that could be comforting for someone like you, Shepard,” she smirked cautiously.

“Yeah, should be pretty scary,” he shook his head. “But I guess to defeat the Reapers we’ve got to be… something different. Different than everybody—stand out. And that’s the scary thought, for me.”

Miranda didn’t say a word.

“By the way,” Shepard removed the data-pad from his coat and handed it to Miranda. “Thought you might like to see this. It’s a few things from Mordin he wanted to send to me in case he died. It showed up on my bedroom floor, this morning.“

Miranda tentatively took the data-pad and pressed play. It had been paused where Shepard had left off, and Mordin’s voice rang through the lobby:

> _Through many dangers, toils, and snares_  
>  I have already come.  
>  ‘Tis grace that brought me safe thus far,  
>  And grace will lead me home.  
>    
>  Hmm. Maybe next time. Until then: will stick to patter songs.

++

Kaidan had gotten the apartment mostly straightened up, had gotten Tali hydrated enough for her toxin filters to finally begin rapidly working the alcohol out of her system, and had endured a monster bear-hug from Wrex on his way out the door.

Joker had said that the Commander had gone on to the docking bay ahead of them, needing some time to think, and Kaidan had assumed responsibility for getting everyone going in good time and still leaving the apartment looking presentable.

When the last of the Normandy crew were shuffling out the door, Kaidan stood and stared at the picture of them all still displayed on the vid-screen. He activated his omni-tool and switched off the fire places. He switched off the lights. He shut off the water element. And he turned off the vid-screen last.

Just as he was ready to leave himself, there was a whisper of a sliding panel in the back office, and he walked back to investigate.

A Keeper had slipped into the apartment from a maintenance tunnel next to the bar. The large insectoid seemed to survey the office for a moment, unheeding of Kaidan’s presence. Kaidan stared at the impassive worker for a long time.

“Don’t you dare touch anything.” His voice cut through the still air, “He’s coming back. And he’s gonna want everything just the way he left it.”

 The Keeper looked back and forth for another moment before returning to the tunnel, the panel sliding shut behind him. Kaidan shivered.

He exited and locked down the apartment, but walked away slowly. At the base of Tiberius Towers, he started at a shimmer near the shop window, which materialized into Col Vedirus.

Kaidan smirked.

“Col! Come to see me off, or is this another coincidental meeting?”

“I have come to see you off, Kaidan.” He held out his hand and smiled.

“…You were the one that left that data-pad in Shepard’s room weren’t you? From Mordin Solus?”

Vedirus grinned widely, “Indeed! An excellent evening’s diversion, wouldn’t you say? But no need to worry, Major—“

“We all have our disturbing little secrets, right?”

“Precisely.”

“ _When_ did you put it in there? I would’ve noticed it if…” He scratched the back of his neck.

“Ah! Well, I happened to enter the apartment while your entire party was in the bedroom watching that… particular vid. I decided leaving it on one of the coffee tables would be too easy. Having come off a rash of guard-duty jobs, I thought it might be fun to test the old infiltration skills. So I thought ‘why not put it directly in the room where multiple skilled warriors, technicians, and biotics are all gathered in close proximity? Now _that_ would be a challenge!’”

“To be fair, everyone was pretty… inebriated.”

“No matter. I entered the bedroom during a scene involving some… robot… spiders? Perhaps. And managed to place it next to the bed. Was out before the conclusion of the story though, unfortunately.” He shook his head, “I wonder, was John Foster able to use the Genius Ray? No, don’t tell me. I will probably watch it for myself…”

“So this whole week, all of our little coincidental running into each other was just so you could case the joint to have some fun delivering a letter?”

Col seemed taken aback.

“Far more than a letter, Kaidan! Instructions to deliver that data-pad were among my friend Solus’ final requests!”

“Still, you’re normally such an efficient guy,” Kaidan asked suspiciously.

“Indeed. Mordin had been working on a testing process that would be able to detect Cerberus genetic and synthetic manipulation. Since he was the one who helped install a large number of Shepard’s skin and bone weaves during their mission against the Collectors, he had managed to gather a large amount of information. The chance was too good to pass up. He put this on hold to pursue the genophage cure. I managed to complete that research, and brought it to bear testing Shepard’s clone.”

“So… you were using me to get information on Shepard.”

“Not exactly, though I understand it paints me in a terrible light.” He scratched his head awkwardly “Realizing Shepard’s importance both to the Reapers and Cerberus, he wanted to ensure that Shepard did not have any hidden Cerberus latent-activation protocols implanted. Additionally, with the strong presence of cybernetics in Shepard’s musculature and nervous systems, he wanted to ensure that he was not an especial candidate for indoctrination. I wanted to be sure this was not the case before I delivered Mordin’s final message for Shepard.”

“When did you test Shepard?” Kaidan’s eyebrows knit into an angry frown.

“I did not, Major,” Col stated simply, “Mordin did not trust easily, nor do I. I have been skeptical of Shepard since his induction in the Spectres, and since his timely return from the dead. His work is unimpeachable, however. It is obvious to me now that you also do not trust easily, Spectre Alenko. If you are confident the man you care so deeply for is the same man who helped you defeat Saren and the geth, then I do not need any further tests.”

Kaidan stood there, appraising Col Vedirus’ face.

“I have to admit, I’m not sure if I’d have as much faith if I were in your position, Col.”

“That is exactly what gives me confidence in my decision.”

“…thank you for your friendship, Col. And your trust.” He shook Col’s hand.

“You have earned them both, Spectre Kaidan Alenko. And soon, my gratitude, I suspect—as well as that of the galaxy.”

“It makes it stressful to think so much is riding on the Normandy. But it helps to know good people believe in us.”

“Faith will not win us this war, Kaidan. But it is in dark times such as this where faith is most often and amply rewarded.” Col gave a gentle bow, and the air shimmered about him. He disappeared around the corner. When Kaidan emerged onto the street, Liara, Joker and Garrus were waiting for him next to an open cab.

++

Miranda had gone, but Shepard still stared at the Normandy through the docking bay window, bathed in smoky light. The commotion of his crew arriving all at once didn’t even seem to merit a glance, not until Kaidan bumped his shoulder and joined him on the railing.

“Huh. Guess we better get back to it,” Kaidan said, his tone feeling for Shepard’s mood.

“At least we threw one hell of a party,” Shepard mused, “… probably the last one.”

Kaidan laughed suddenly drawing Shepard’s gaze “Shepard, you…” The Widow made Normandy’s reinforced hull plating shimmer. “You will find a way to win. I know it. And when you do, I’ll be waiting.”

The docking bay doors opened and the crew filed out. Kaidan continued:

“Yeah. Greatest challenge of my life. And also the greatest reward.” He rose up, “It’s been a good ride.” Kaidan walked slowly behind the procession as Shepard remained, reflecting.

“…the best,” he sighed at last, pushing himself to his full height and jogging after Kaidan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just my little tribute to the Citadel DLC, which has made me happier than 98% of other media in the world. 
> 
> Next Chapter:  
> Returning to the war.


	36. The Difference between the Brain and the Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Normandy is a flurry of activity as everyone prepares for the final raid on Cerberus. Shepard and Kaidan are each coming face to face with their biggest doubts before the end.

The Normandy was a beehive of activity: the bustle _before_ the calm before the storm.

Shepard had been in rare form, standing above the galaxy map in the CIC for close to five hours, barking out commands to the bevy of analysts who had been collating data with EDI. The relays were mapped out, and Shepard had been coordinating with the Fifth Fleet on how best to cover the exits. The primary goal was to retrieve the Catalyst, and any cost could be paid for that.

The best option, then, was a massive assault on Cronos Station. Cripple it as quickly as possible. In the end, they decided to leave all retreat routes open: if the Cerberus fleet escaped, it escaped.

The crew wasn’t used to Shepard being present in the CIC for hours on end, and often two analysts would begin a loud and boisterous conversation, only to suddenly remember the Commander was on deck and hustle back to their duty stations. Shepard never chastised anyone—he was usually the one wandering around the ship chatting anyway—but on his way up to the bridge, he overheard two crewmates talking in hushed tones.

“We’re on the Normandy,” one hissed to the other, unaware of Shepard climbing the stairs up to the gangway. “We’ve got EDI, a friggin’ AI! She can beat the Reapers at their own game! And we’ve got _Commander Shepard_! We’re goin’ to be fine. When’s he ever let us down?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” the other answered. “It’s nerve-wracking being humanity’s last hope. But I guess as long as we support Shepard, we’re going to win this. I know it.”

They both heard Shepard’s footfalls at the same moment and swiftly turned their attention back to their haptics.

When he reached the bridge, he almost ran into EDI striding out the hatch. She carried a small package in her hands, wrapped in a purple ribbon.

“Hello, Shepard.” She smiled at him brightly, holding up the package when he gave it a quizzical look. “This is my gift for Kaidan. An art project, of sorts. I finally had an opportunity to finish it after the party last night, once the crew had fallen asleep.”

“Oh, are you taking it to him now?”

“No. Upon recording the dedication, I determined the gift would be more fitting to give it after the Reapers are defeated. I am taking it to store in the cargo bay so it will not be in the way on the bridge.”

“That’s… very sweet, EDI. What’d you get him?”

“I must not tell you, Shepard. In many ways, it is a gift for both of you, and it will spoil the surprised if I tell you.”

“Alright EDI,” he lightly touched the delicate ribbon. “Glad to see you’re feeling alright before we raid Cerberus.”

“I meant what I said in our previous discussion, Shepard,” she nodded firmly. “The Reapers care only about self-preservation. I am different. It does not matter that I owe Cerberus my existence, I owe this crew—I owe _you_ —my humanity. I will sacrifice the former for the latter.”

With that she strode off down the gangway, leaving Shepard with a wistful smile and a heavy brow.

++

Not long after, Shepard made his way down to the medbay.

“Shepard,” Doctor Chakwas brushed her hair off her forehead, “What can I do for you?”

“Things are going to be getting pretty hectic around here in the next 48 hours,” Shepard ran a hand over one of the medical beds, taking in the texture of the smooth polymer. “Was hoping I could get a physical before things get too busy. If you’ve got the time.”

Chakwas quirked an eyebrow.

“Of course I have time, though I must say this is a surprise.” She stood and beckoned him to sit on another diagnostic table. “Commander Shepard, who’s spent more time in my medbay drinking brandy than showing up for his after-mission check-ups, comes to see me of his own free will for an unscheduled physical.”

“Maybe after that last mission, meeting Leviathan, I’m a little more cautious? Also found out I had a clone since then, so there’s that.” Shepard gave her a wry smirk and laid back. Chakwas patted his boot as she made her way to the other side of the table controls.

“You’re sure Kaidan didn’t scold you down here? You’re lucky to have him, he cares more about your health than you ever have.”

“Haven’t even seen him all day,” Shepard tucked his arms close to his sides while the scanner passed over him. “Too much going on between prepping the Normandy and coordinating with the fleet.”

“With the spring in your step lately, I expect to find you the picture of health as usual, Commander.” She leaned back against another bed while the scan processed. “Provided you actually found any time to _sleep_ on holiday?”

“Doctor,” he tutted, “What kind of man do you take me for?”

“A young one,” she mused ruefully.

“My joints would beg to differ,” Shepard closed his eyes while the scan flashed over his face.

“Then trust your doctor.”

“Yes ma’am.” When the scanner had finished, Shepard didn’t stand up, instead, folding his hands on his belly and squinting up at the lights. “Everything ready down here?”

“As ready as I can make them,” Chakwas watched the way Shepard’s breath came long and slow.

“And you feel ready?”

“Yes, Shepard. I do. We’re supplied to keep the ground teams well-stocked, the crew has been briefed on emergency procedures, and triage protocols are well in place.”

“Triage,” Shepard snickered. “I’ve been thinking about that lately. Usually when I have to make a decision that costs a member of my crew their life, I have to make it on the spot. On instinct. But I’ve been allocating resources and troop support for Hammer team back on Earth, and it’s all different.”

“Military tactics and medical triage aren’t quite the same, I’m afraid,” she was reviewing her charts slower than she had to, watching Shepard warily out of the corner of her eye.

Shepard gave a hollow laugh.

“Feels like it, sometimes. Been having to choose which assault teams are the most expendable. Did you know? There are no supply lines for the battle on Earth. No team in reserve to secure the planet, even. Every instinct of preparing for a battle like this has been reduced to figuring out how we’re going to throw ourselves at the enemy until we break their line.”

Chakwas had finished monitoring Shepard’s vitals, but continued to idly poke at the data pad.

“You’re a soldier, Shepard. And a brilliant leader,” she smiled. “That’s true no matter how savage the encounter.”

“We’ll win this,” he nodded. “Anyway, that’s why I wanted to make sure I was in top condition.”

“Apart from the understandable stress, you’re healthy as the first day I examined you,” she placed hand on his shoulder. “With a few added pieces, of course.” When Shepard lay there still, she set down her data-pad and crossed her arms. “Alright, Shepard. What’s really going on?”

“…I’ve had the chills for weeks now. All the time. Since I came back from Despoina…” he shook his head. “And nightmares. I’ve been having them since we left Earth, but they’ve been getting worse.”

“Why is this the first I’m hearing of this?” Her voice was gentle, but a frown tugged at the edges of her mouth.

“It might be nothing. I’ve barely told Kaidan.”

“It’s not unusual for someone under as much pressure as you are to experience nightmares. As for the physiological symptoms: stress can manifest itself in a number of ways.”

“I’m wondering, with my synthetics, if I’m more susceptible to indoctrination.” Shepard’s jaw was tight, and he didn’t meet the doctor’s eye. Chakwas, however, didn’t react but to quirk an eyebrow.

“It’s true that your body now contains an impressive array of synthetic components—mostly in the form of tissue and bone splints. However, there are a number of VI governed nerve ganglia, as well as your synthetic ocular nerves, certain select portions of your brain VI enhanced to compensate for damaged tissue.” She sighed, “Unfortunately, we understand so little about how indoctrination works. It takes dissecting a brain to even tell when one is indoctrinated.”

“The Catalyst,” Shepard mused, “The VI we found on Thessia: it could detect Kai Leng before we ever spotted him, and it knew he was indoctrinated.”

“That’s technology we don’t currently possess in ‘this Cycle,’ I’m afraid. I suppose as long as it was talking to you, you have nothing to worry about?”

“Just less to worry about,” Shepard’s chest tightened with the confession, though the smile never left his face. “I need to make sure nothing is going to stop me from putting an end to the Reapers, once and for all.”

 “You know, Shepard,” Chakwas was no longer bothering to pretend she was _still_ processing Shepard’s scans. “I’ve never known you to worry like this before a battle.”

“I try not to in front of the crew. It doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.”

“We flew through a Relay to certain death together. And I’ve known you long enough to know when I’m speaking with ‘Commander Shepard’ and when I’m speaking to the flesh-and-blood under all that armor and legend.” Her eyes twinkled above her smile.

“Wasn’t I?”

“Your memory is typically better than mine.”

“Kaidan jokes about that, sometimes,” Shepard swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. “How I can be ‘Ben’ on minute and ‘Commander Shepard’ the next…” He shook his head. “There’s so much at stake. Protecting the galaxy comes first, always. But there’s a lot at stake for me, personally.” He shrugged, “I don’t know. Everything that’s happened has felt like it’s led to this moment, I don’t just mean the Reapers. I mean us. This crew. Kaidan. I think back to that suicide mission, and I think I _must_ have felt this worried, because I didn’t want to die before meeting these people, before being with Kaidan. I know I wasn’t. But it feels like I was.”

“And what do you feel about the future?” she asked softly.

“That’s what I’m worried about. If it comes down to Kaidan or the galaxy, I’d have to choose the galaxy. It’s what Kaidan would do if the position were reversed… I need to remind myself what he would do. But something like that,” he rubbed his thumb along the edge of the med-bed, hardcoding, “It’s never even been a consideration, before.”

“It won’t be that simple.” She touched his arm.

“No,” he stood up. “I need to fight the impulse to be selfish with my own life, when there’s so much on the line.”

“It isn’t selfish to want to live, Shepard,” her laugh was crisply musical, piercing the gloomy tone. “If it comes to it, you’ll lay down your life for humanity, of course! But at least if you want to live, you’ll feel why it’s important to save every life!”

“I’ve known that since Akuze.”

“But now you _feel_ it,” she moved around to the other side of the bed to begin tidying up some slides, and this seemed to break the spell on the conversation. “You can’t love every star in the sky, Shepard. But every sailor has that one guiding light, drawing him home.”

++

“It can’t be as simple as that, can it?” The holographic image of Admiral Anderson flickered over the QEC emitter. It was clear that Anderson was pacing back and forth, the communicator tracking his movement. Kaidan held up his hands, shrugged.

“It really is, though.”

“Isn’t it dangerous?”

“Yeah, it’s dangerous,” Kaidan rubbed the back of his hand across his brow, sweating beneath the spotlights in the QEC room. “That’s why I didn’t want to bring it up, but…”

“No, I’m glad you did.” Anderson stopped pacing. They’d been talking for just over two hours: Kaidan’s biotic special tactics group had just rendezvoused with the London resistance. By this time they were used to operating alone in enemy territory, and if it had been any commanding officer other than Anderson, they might never have shown up.

‘How do we maximize their potential?’ Anderson had asked Kaidan, and the Spectre had dissembled.

“No, Admiral—“

“What have I told you, Alenko? It’s ‘Anderson’ or nothing. If I finally beat it into Shepard’s head, I’m going to get it through yours.”

Kaidan smiled.

“ _Anderson,_ just… forget I mentioned it. The potential for something to go wrong—“

“—is a lot lower than most of the plans I’ve heard lately.”

“...getting that much Red Sand…”

“We’ve got it.”

“—the civilian casualties aren’t acceptable.”

‘Nothing’s off the table,’ Anderson had said. The efforts to mobilize the remaining citizens of London into a militia had gone reasonably well despite the Reaper propaganda. But there were only so many guns, and every untrained militia man killed in a skirmish was another gun gone.

The best way to maximize his students’ biotic abilities?

Red Sand.

Specifically, training a large number of non-biotics to use Red Sand to bring extra power to artillery barriers.  Red Sand induced biotic abilities were short-lived—about forty-five minutes—but in that time, a skirmish could be won with the extra barriers.

Kaidan’s students could each teach dozens of un-dusted civilians some simple movements to create barriers, so once they had taken the dose, their bodies would be ready make the most of the high. An injection of other eezo derivatives would prevent the euphoria that usually accompanied the ingestion of Red Sand and allow them the clarity they needed.

“How long have you been sitting on this idea, Alenko?” Anderson removed his cap, stretched the stiff brim. Kaidan could only shrug.

“Lotta sleepless nights, past few months.”

“For both of us.”

“I shouldn’t have brought it up, it’s a bad idea,” Kaidan threw his data-pad on the console and folded his arms. “We can’t risk civilians like that: the people we’re supposed to be protecting.”

“We’re not ‘protecting’ anybody, anymore, Kaidan. We’re trying to kill the Reapers.”

“Drugging people into living weapons… it goes against everything I stand for. They’re unreliable. Even more unreliable than a militia already is.”

“We don’t have the luxury for that anymore,” Anderson was clearly leaning over a table now, his holographic image looking odd propped in mid-air. “We wouldn’t have formed a militia if we didn’t need every person who can hold a gun defending our home. Our right to exist. Except we don’t have any guns. Armaments that could make the difference on the front lines are defending civilian centers, and even then, it’s not enough.”

“There’s a lot of factors to consider.” Kaidan brushed both hands through his hair, unbuttoned the top button on his uniform shirt. “It sounds like a crazy plan, saying it out loud.”

Anderson looked down at his hands.

“What do you think the Crucible is? It’s a long shot of a long shot,” he rose to his full height. “Been conferring with Hackett, trying to delay the Reapers any way we can. Including luring as many of them to Earth as we can, then blowing the Charon relay. Destroy a few. Trap a few more.”

“No,” Kaidan shook his head. “We’d lose Earth and we wouldn’t even put a dent in their numbers. Maybe some of the smaller ships, but those big capital ships? The size of those eezo cores? Their FTL drives are a thousand times faster than any ship in the galaxy. We wouldn’t even slow them down.”

“Which is why we scrapped it,” he nodded stiffly. “But we’re considering everything. Everything. So I only have one question, Major. Do you believe your students are up to the task of teaching this?”

“…yes, sir. Without a doubt.”

“We’ll consider it.” Anderson sighed, his eyes closed. When he opened them again, he was smiling, “I knew talking to you would be a good idea, Alenko. Your scores in Tactics and Games were always off the charts.  Part of the reason I picked you for my crew in the first place.”

“High scores,” Kaidan rolled his eyes, “but a ‘penchant for extreme strategies with excessive collateral damage.’”

“This is total war, son,” Anderson said softly. Kaidan looked up at the word ‘son.’ “This war was made for your little penchant.”

“Hmm.”

“Tell you what, you bring the fight to Earth with the Crucible and neither of us will need to think about this anymore.”

“Sure thing, Anderson.”

“I’m glad to see shore leave didn’t dull your fighting spirit!” Anderson’s shoulder relaxed into a tired chuckle.

“No way,” Kaidan pinched his nose, laughing, “Gave me a chance to think about what we’re fighting for.” He rolled his eyes, “And I spent just about the whole time in the simulator with Shepard, so I’m in good shape for whatever’s coming.”

“I should’ve known the two of you wouldn’t take an order to relax lying down! How’s Shepard doing, by the way? He sure as hell won’t tell me, and last time I talked with Joker, he said I should be asking you.”

Kaidan suppressed a guffaw.

“He’s fine. Stressed, but fine.”

“Mhm,” Anderson quirked an eyebrow. “I worry about him. About both of you.”

“You’ve got plenty to worry about with the resistance on Earth, Anderson. Your old crew is ready. We can handle ourselves.”

“That you can. But it isn’t about worry. It’s about family. And there’s _always_ time to worry about family.” He gave Kaidan a piercing gaze until the younger man nodded his assent, and Anderson smiled. “Being back in London has got me thinking about family. I look around at all this rubble and I think about the life I want for myself when this is over. The life I want for the people I care about, people like you and Shepard.”

“Yeah, that’s a good thing to see. Keeps you focused on why we need to win.”

Anderson’s mind seemed to wander for a few moments, then he shook his head and opened his omni-tool.

“Hopefully Shepard made good use of that big, empty apartment while he was on leave,” he glanced up at Kaidan, who bit his lip to hide a smile.

“I think leave did him good, sir.”

Anderson’s eyes twinkled. He nodded ever so slightly.

“You two take care of each other,” then, without waiting for a response, “Now, let’s go over these troop deployments. As long as I’ve got you on the line, I might as well run these past you—“

++

Shepard had been waiting, back against a bulkhead, outside the QEC Room for the better part of 20 minutes. Kaidan’s conversation with the hologram inside was an indistinct murmur, but when the noises stopped altogether, Shepard turned into the room. Kaidan was huddled over a data-pad, back to the door.

“Kaidan, hey.”

Kaidan turned his head and smiled before returning his focus to his data-pad, “Oh, hey there Shepard.”

“Just get off the comms with Anderson?”

 “Yeah, giving Anderson some insight into my special forces squad. Tough decisions. I want to protect people, but every strategy I come up with is always so… nevermind. Anyway. It’s good to hear from him.” Kaidan continued typing into his data-pad for a moment before looking back up at Shepard “Something you needed?”

Shepard smiled lightly.

“Did you know just a day ago we were making out on a sofa in our very own luxury apartment?”

Kaidan’s expression fell, “…shit. I’m sorry, Ben. I guess I just got hung up on getting caught up with work. Been in this comms room so long, I kinda forgot anything exists outside.”

“That’s what I’m here for. You doing okay?” He rubbed gently up Kaidan’s arm, squeezing his shoulder.

“Yeah. I am,” he leaned his body into Shepard’s, “I think I just needed to remind myself of that.”

“You’re always telling me not to work so much.”

“Huh. I guess I am. Does this mean I’m getting through to you?” Kaidan asked with a smirk.

“I think you must be. What are you doing tonight?”

“I feel like you’re about to tell me,” Kaidan replied, smile turning suggestive.

“I figured we could forget we live on a warship one more time for old time’s sake. I have a pretty good feeling I’ll be relaying maneuvers and positioning assets all night tomorrow. Maybe we could finish that book?”

“Yeah, that sounds really great. Quiet, boring evening, huh?” Kaidan said, grinning at Shepard as he backed out of the room. Shepard stared a moment longer and turned to the QEC transmitter with a sigh.

++

A few hours later, Shepard and Kaidan sat, as usual, on Shepard’s bed, crosslegged. Each had an empty pouch of protein sup in their hands. Shepard’s uniform shirt was thrown over the back of the chair. He’d shucked down to just his white t-shirt, just as he always had when Kaidan stopped by.

“Always good to have supplemental packaged protein after you get off shore leave. Reminds you you’re a soldier.” Shepard said, leaning back on his elbows, and wincing as he crooked his spine the wrong way.

“I miss the cushy bed on the Citadel,” Kaidan said, “but to be honest, I sorta missed the fish.”

“Well… we can install a fish tank in the apartment?”

“Ha. That’d be really great, Shepard.” He knocked his knuckles on Shepard’s knee-cap playfully “Ah, sitting here with you, waiting for a mission, eating protein supp, talking about the past. I guess I missed this too.”

“Yeah. Me too. I’m pretty sure I haven’t heard about everything you’ve done in your life, Kaidan. Tell me something new.”

Kaidan laughed, and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, “Thinking about adding an aquarium to the apartment gets me thinking about the future.”

“Oh?” Shepard quirked an eyebrow, “What are you thinking?”

Kaidan chuckled, “You actually thinking about living there?”

“After the war? Yeah, I suppose I might. It’ll depend.”

“On what?” Kaidan asked softly.

“A lot of things, I suppose,” there was a glint in Shepard’s eye, “Seems like a big place to keep around just for shore leave.”

“Mhm. Would almost be a waste.”

“It might be a good place to come home to when I retire, though.”

“You’d be holding it for a long time,” Kaidan smiled.

“Maybe,” Shepard replied, coming off his elbows and leaning in, “Maybe not.”

“Oh?”

“Mm. It’s a pretty big place for just one person, though.”

“It’s pretty big for just two.” Kaidan chuckled. Shepard blinked hard, eyebrows scrunching as a smile played at his lips.

“Yeah…” he turned his eyes down, smiling at the bed, “But I don’t want to plan anything too far ahead. Last I heard, I was going home with you.”

“I remember that plan. You still really wanna do that?”

“I can’t wait.”

Shepard leaned back on the bed, chest heaving with a yawn. Kaidan plucked the empty pouch out of his hand and stood up to deposit them on the table. He hovered over the chess board, the rook he had moved way back when still stolidly in its position, opposing the holographic side of the board.

“I’m anxious to find out how I’ll feel once we beat Cerberus,” he mused. “It’s hard to hate the Reapers. It’s easy to hate the Illusive Man.”

He moved a holographic bishop, then maneuvered his rook to the other end of the board.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Cerberus. I mean, they’re scum, right? Betraying their own kind like that. The people they’ve killed. The Reapers? They’re… machines,” he huffed a sigh. “That’s not fair. But. Dammit, I dunno. I guess they’re just too big to hate, y’know? Beyond us.”

“I think it’s simple,” Shepard’s eyebrows scrunched. “They’re trying to kill everyone. We need to stop them. You can’t believe their bullshit about being a force of nature, Kaidan.”

“Naw, I guess… I don’t. And I do. I dunno,” he picked up the rook and rolled in against his palm. “It makes you think. All that knowledge they could tell us—I say that the knowledge Cerberus gained isn’t worth the people they murdered on Sanctuary. I think that’s true for the Reapers, too, but does it change the equation at all when they’ve been at it for millions of years? Does that make it worse? Or does that make the knowledge… valuable enough?”

Shepard remained silent, hands smoothing over the creases in his t-shirt: hardcoding.

“Anyway,” Kaidan shook his head, “Cerberus, no matter how much they’re augmented, they’re flesh and blood on the inside. Reapers have got… big eezo hearts, bigger than any eezo core in the galaxy.”

“You said the same thing about Leviathan.”

“Yeah, guess I did. Amazing creatures. The galaxy is so big. Strange. Imagine what we could be if we were allowed?”

“We fight for that.”

“We do,” Kaidan nodded, set the rook back in place. “What a waste. All that knowledge they have—Leviathan _and_ the Reapers—all that power.”

“With all that power,” Shepard whispered, “All they want to do is survive.”

“Talking to Anderson today, seems like that’s all this war’s about at this point.”

“…maybe. But not for me. Not anymore.”

Kaidan came back to the bed, kneeling; placed a hand over Shepard’s heart—warm and small, and fragile for all its upgrades. The polar opposite of the indomitable eezo core at the heart of every Reaper—almost a Relay’s worth of element zero and ten million voices driving it on.

He rubbed a thumb against Shepard’s chest until Ben’s heartbeat slowed beneath his palm.

“Me neither.”

“It’ll be over soon…”

“In and out of that Cerberus base… might be soon as next week…” Kaidan grinned, prompting a chuckle from Shepard.

“I love that you’re so confident,” he took Kaidan’s hand. “You make me feel like I could take on the whole galaxy. And I feel like it’s about time I had you all to myself,” He kissed Kaidan’s knuckles, “I have a lot more to learn about you.”

 “What do you wanna know?” Kaidan smirked. Shepard laughed and leaned back, thinking to himself.

“Hm. Most fun you’ve ever had with your biotics?”

Kaidan grinned “That’s it? _That’s_ what you wanna know? C’mon, Shepard!”

“What? We’ve been going over some heavy stuff! And besides, I feel like you’ve got some stories.”

“Okay, okay. Hm, most fun I’ve ever had with biotics… Other than that time I pinned you to the bed?” He chuckled, “Ummm. Probably during special forces training with my squad. Extended barrier techniques, started off teaching them how to project just a big enough field to keep the rain off. They all thought it was so dumb. Then I got to hurl things at them.”

Shepard laughed along with Kaidan, “You really liked teaching, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I really did, kinda miss that too. Especially after one of our many, many near-death experiences. I think I’m getting older.”

“Not wanting to constantly be faced with the possibility of death doesn’t have to be a negative thing,” Shepard said, “at least I hope not.”

“Maybe. How about you?”

“Biotics? First time I performed a charge at an elevated target.”

“…huh.” Kaidan looked unimpressed.

“It’s harder than it looks! On level ground it’s easy, but in three dimensions if you don’t judge it just right you go flying into the ceiling, or worse. I still never do it in combat.”

“Huh! I had no idea you even had a cautious-side, Shepard.”

“I’m no good to anyone if I’m a splat on the wall. I like my life.”

“I just need to get used to this sexy new self-preservation instinct.” Kaidan leaned over and pulled Shepard’s legs around his hips, kissing the other man on the chin, “You better remember that when we get to the Cerberus base, alright?”

“You’ve given me pretty good incentive.” Shepard said, pulling himself up into Kaidan’s lap. Taking his chin in one hand, the two kissed deeply. Shepard pulled away slowly, resting his forehead against Kaidan’s, “Not that I don’t enjoy it, but we’ve been doing just about everything to avoid finishing that book.”

“I guess we have,” Kaidan smoothed his hands up the small of Shepard’s back, “You know if we finish it, shore leave’s really over?” he teased.

“Seems like a good place to leave it. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah. I can think of worse places to be.”

“I guess I’ll have lots of time after the war to find out all the things I don’t know about you.”

“Count on it.”

They settled into their usual reading positions: Shepard’s head laid on Kaidan’s chest, eyes closed, breathing deeply while Kaidan read in a deep, level tone. Neither man said a word after Kaidan read the closing lines, Shepard silently rolling over to kiss his brow, pressing their foreheads together. Kaidan’s eyes were glassy, and the two sat like that awhile.

“Well. That was my dad’s favorite book.” Kaidan cleared his throat, sighed.

“I’m glad we got to read it.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“How are you feeling?”

“…it hurts to know he’s gone, Ben. I know how many people have died because of this war, I still have a lot to be thankful for… I wish I would’ve said more to my dad when I had the chance.”

“He knew what he meant to you. He was proud of you.”

“Uh huh. And I guess you never really say everything you wanna say to someone, huh?” He looked deeply into Shepard’s eyes.

“I know you’re hurting—“

“—everyone’s hurting—“

“—and you don’t have to go through this alone. I’m here for you, Kaidan.” He laid a hand on Kaidan’s chest, just the same as Kaidan had done for him earlier.

“I know. Thank you.” He took a deep, shuddering breath, “Y’know… I didn’t know what I was doing when I started reading these books. But… it made me feel close to my dad. He taught me a lot.”

“Wish I could’ve met him,” Shepard said gently.

“Yeah, I wish you could’ve too,” Kaidan laid his hand on Shepard’s. “I just don’t wanna think about… if my dad got turned into a husk—“

“Hey!” Shepard took Kaidan’s face in his hands, “What are you doing? Don’t even go there.”

“I know. You just… you see so much, y’know?”

“Yeah.”

“EDI asked me a couple weeks ago how you’re supposed to deal with the death of a loved one. I told her you find a way to keep learning about them. That they help you… keep growing.”

“Do you feel that way about your dad?”

“…I think I do… “ He ran his eyes over the last page of _World of Wonders_ displayed on the data-pad, “It was good to…” he cleared his throat, “To… uh… share him with somebody.” Kaidan’s eyes were glassy as he met Shepard’s stare, “I’m really glad you’re here, Ben. I really need you here.”

They continued talking long into the night, Kaidan remembering his father while Shepard listened, smiling softly, Shepard talking about adventures at the Villa, funny stories from his mission against the Collectors. Cliché likes and dislikes, profound epiphanies, they ran the gamut. Two hours away from the start of their duty shift, they finally drifted to sleep in one another’s arms.

On the bed beside them, opened to the final pages of Kaidan’s father’s favorite book, Kaidan had scrolled back to one particular quote by the Magician of the story:

> _“It’s just the way things strike me, after the life I’ve lived, which looks pretty much like a World of Wonders when I spread it out before me, as I’ve been doing. Everything has its astonishing, wondrous aspect…”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> He lied, he didn't come here for a quick drink.


	37. The Difference between Good Times and Hard Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quick drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter reincorporates some of the cut dialogue from this scene, and plays it like DanaDuchy's video. You can listen to Sbarge and Meer perform it here:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaZrAa547Qo
> 
> Yes, I know that some of these dialogue choices were for Paragon/Renegade, and I have jammed them all into one convo. But if you're already dipping into deuterocanon, might as well go big, amirite?

> _Hey Dad,_
> 
> _I finished the_ Deptford Trilogy, _finally. I liked it a lot, and a lot more than I thought I was going to, too. Really is your kind of book, huh? When I was in the Academy and trying to read it, it didn’t really make sense to me why you were so into it. Dunstan Ramsey and all his sarcasm and big thoughts about history didn’t remind me of the man who raised me. Neither did Magnus Eisengrim, the show-off magician. I was still trying to prove that I was worth the time you put into bringing me up, and I thought you seemed different from any of the people in those books._
> 
> _I guess I see it now. You were happy with the way your life turned out. You didn’t think you needed to be a big hero or anything. You were content with me and mom—more than content, maybe. You got exactly what you wanted out of life, you didn’t settle for anything, it’s just that what you wanted wasn’t what they sing songs about, just like Ramsay._
> 
> _God, it sounds cliché. But I’m feeling cliché lately, dad. Then again, same time… you weren’t ever satisfied that you were being the best you could, just like Magnus in those books. You had a code. I didn’t see it when I was younger. I guess I had to get older to read it the right way._
> 
> _When I read it now, where I am—living through this war, watching people die, watching the world rip itself to pieces—it means something different to me. I wonder if I’ll ever be content like you got to be, dad. I don’t’ think I have the benefit of trying to be my best person. What if the universe isn’t like that, at the end? At the heart of things, what if there isn’t room for all my big thoughts and my morality? What if there isn’t a place for me and Shepard and a family and a house?_
> 
> _I wish you were still around to talk to about it. I think I’m wiser now, dad._
> 
> _Guess I should tell you about Shepard._
> 
> _Dad, I’m in love. Never been so sure about anything._
> 
> _His name’s Ben. I think I might have been in love with him for a long time without knowing it. You told me that the first time you saw mom you had no idea how important she was going to be for you? I guess it was like that. He’s coming home with me after the war to meet mom, that is, if we make it. I wish he could meet you. You would like him. Yeah, you’d like anyone I brought home because_ I _brought them. But you would like Ben._
> 
> _He read the last book with me,_ World of Wonders? _Yeah. Says he might go back and read the other two. He’s the one, dad, that they’re going to be writing songs about: hagiographies, even, I bet. I don’t think I fit in with those stories, though. I want to make it easier for him, and if that means that I’m under a little more pressure, so be it._
> 
> _What’s important is that we’re together. That we’re going to be together, whether we end this war together or go down swinging. I’m not leaving him behind. I love him._
> 
> _I thought you would want to know, after all those talks we had on the balcony. I guess I just needed to say that out loud. That I’m in love._
> 
> _I know you’re dead. You’re never going to read this letter. I’m not going to send it. I miss you and I always will._
> 
> _Your Son,_
> 
> _Kaidan_

Kaidan didn’t bother reading the letter over, instead saving it next to his KIA letter to Shepard on his omni-tool. He leaned his head against the obs lounge window, breathed slowly against the field of stars.

The bottle of whiskey was sitting on the sofa, Kaidan had retrieved it from its hidey hole in the ship’s bar earlier this evening after Shepard had scuttled up to the loft to work. He hadn’t so much as said ‘goodnight.’

“Aww hell,” he muttered under his breath.

++

The door to the captain’s cabin opened and Shepard practically collided with Kaidan just outside the door. Shepard had been so preoccupied, he hadn’t even stripped down to his undershirt as usual, standing there speechless in his full uniform.

“Huh. Can’t sleep either?” Kaidan gave him a sheepish smile.

“No.”

“Making yourself crazy with this won’t help.” Kaidan brushed past Ben and down the steps into his cabin, brandishing his bottle of whiskey.

“Kaidan I need to—“

“Shh. Just take five minutes, a quick drink, then I’ll go.” Kaidan’s brow was anchored down tight, but his eyes were soft, and Shepard nodded at last.

“Shepard, you know that you’ve done everything you could, right?” He had opened the bottle and poured two glasses. Shepard stared at his data-pad for another moment, but finally set it down.

“I hope so. I keep running the numbers to see if I’ve missed something,” Shepard said, accepting a glass.

“You don’t have to take this all on yourself. Look to your crew, to the talented people fighting by your side.” Shepard didn’t quite meet his gaze as they walked to the couch, but Kaidan continued, “What you’ve accomplished since the Reapers arrived is… it’s just nothing short of amazing.” Shepard’s expression had softened as he sat, smiling warmly as Kaidan joined him, “It’s… it’s gonna be what it is.”

He stared, his mouth frozen mirroring the little smile Kaidan’s had been toying with since he entered the cabin. The two sat, much as they had after their sanity check so long before, a comfortable space between.

Kaidan took Shepard’s hand in his, softly tracing the lines in his palm with a calloused finger.

“I came here because… well.” Kaidan licked his lips and started again, “Because just sitting by myself and anticipating… whatever. Didn’t make sense.” He rolled his eyes, “Not much has made sense lately… but, uh… this?”

Shepard had to lean in to catch his eye.

“What are you thinking about right now?”

Kaidan chuckled.

“The good times and the… hard times. It’s been an unforgettable few years. And you were always so focused on the work back then. The mission was everything.”

“It’s true. I’ll never know what I missed.” He took Kaidan’s hand, “You’re exactly what I need right now, Kaidan.” Shepard said, his words caught on Kaidan’s lips as they kissed, Kaidan’s hands gliding over the smoothness of Shepard’s neck, fingers brushing the stubble at his chin.

Kaidan pulled away a moment later, almost apologetic, the glare of the cabin lights reflected in his eyes like beach glass in sunlight.

“I lied. I didn’t come here for a quick drink.”

Shepard kissed Kaidan’s thumb smoothing over his lip, but then shook his head ruefully.

“Kaidan… I need to—“

When he tried to stand, Kaidan held on tight, and Shepard nearly collapsed back into the warmth of his chest.

“Hey, hey, hey! Where you going?”

“I need to get back to this,” Ben said, but laid his head against Kaidan’s shoulder. There was the faintest shiver traveling up his spine. “There’s not much time.”

“C’mon. Stay.”

He looked at the data-pad left on the table. Shepard swallowed, smiled into Kaidan’s shoulder.

“Is that an order?”

“Yeah.”

“Aye aye, Captain.” Shepard grinned and pushed him back into the couch, straddled his body to resume their kiss. There wasn’t much time. Kaidan’s arms wrapped around his waist, held him close. “You being here with me. It means everything,” Ben confessed.

“I wanna be your strength,” he held Ben’s gaze, cradling his bad hip with a strong arm. “Your soft place to land.”

“Kaidan…” Ben whispered. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Until the end of time.”

They didn’t kiss. They didn’t move. Only held each other, as if the stillness was all that was keeping them together.

“When I think about the time we’ve had together…” Shepard shook his head, his eyes wandering down to Kaidan’s throat, “And I think of all the lonely nights… after Virmire, before Ilos, before we ran the Omega 4 relay… when I think about all the times I left you on your own when we could have…”

Kaidan clutched Shepard’s hands and placed the palms on his chest, “Shepard, everything in our lives has led us to this moment right here.” He stroked Ben’s face, a wry smirk spreading across his face.

“What?” Ben quirked an eyebrow.

“Hey, well, you just told me that you love me.” He licked his lips, “Shouldn’t we celebrate?”

“Then let’s make this night special,” Shepard grinned.

“Mm. Perfect.”

Shepard wrenched his hands free of Kaidan’s grasp and took the other man’s face in his hands, pulling himself into Kaidan’s body. In a deft move, Kaidan unbuckled his uniform belt and completely removed Ben’s shirt, smoothing the sudden goose bumps on his chest with a caress, hands exploring, conforming to the shape of every muscle on Shepard’s torso. He kissed a line down his chest to his navel, before Shepard’s hand on the back of his neck pulled him back up for a deep kiss.

Shepard, impatient, had thrown open Kaidan’s belt himself and unbutton the uniform shirt entirely, wrapping his arms around Kaidan’s neck until the man grabbed him from behind again and pulled their bare chests together in another passionate kiss.

“Bed” Ben muttered as they were recovering their breath, and stepped off the couch, his pants falling to his knees. He stepped out of them and pulled Kaidan up, reached down to pull Kaidan’s pants zipper down, slipping his hands down the slacks behind to push them down Kaidan’s thighs.He kneeled down to pull them over Kaidan’s feet. Once he had thrown the trousers aside, he ran his hands up and down Kaidan’s leg, kissed the along his waistband.

“I thought we were going to bed?” Kaidan grinned, running fingers through Shepard’s hair.

“Lead the way, Captain.”

Kaidan chuckled and seized Shepard around the waist, swinging him around as they sidled up to the bed, locked in a passionate kiss. Shepard’s legs bumped the mattress and a coy smile lit up Kaidan’s face as he placed a hand on Shepard’s chest and pushed the man onto the bed.

++

> _A dream. The same dream—the nightmare in the park._
> 
> _The little boy from Vancouver running away._
> 
> _Shepard couldn’t save him. Couldn’t catch him. The forest was full of shapes, people that wouldn’t help, perhaps couldn’t. They were the dead. Each of them a choice Shepard had made, perhaps the wrong choice. He could hear it in their whispers, not a single voice accusing, and yet…_
> 
> _All their confidence just as damning. It would be better if they had blamed him. But the running boy…_
> 
> _Always had a head start on him, as if Shepard had waited too late to take up the chase. Waited too long to help. And now he was too slow._
> 
> _But then one of the shapes materialized, the oily dead wisp solidified, reached out, embraced the boy. The boy stopped running, threw his arms around the man’s neck. Shepard’s plodding feet skidded to a halt. The Other Man looked up, and the voices ceased when Shepard saw his own face, his own arms clutching the boy to him—A smile he did not recognize on his own face, glaring up at him—Then fire engulfed man and child, then everything exploded in flames—_

—and when he opened his eyes, the stars.

The cold light through his skylight was a contrast to the warmth beneath his head, against his back. Kaidan lay next to him, fast asleep, holding Shepard tight. Slow, regular breathing: the rhythm of the man he loved, the short cycles of his personal universe, warm and soft from his chest to the tips of his fingers lightly grazing Shepard’s stomach. He turned back to the skylight. The stars went on forever, and the universe out there was cold, infinite. It had cycles too.

Kaidan stirred and rolled onto his back when Shepard sat up on the edge of the bed. Shepard made to stand, then looked back at his lover sleeping on the other side of the mattress. He stared for a long time, fingers placing across the cool sheets.

Not hardcoding this time, but as if reading words written in the fabric:  _"Next time, wake me."_

"Hey?" He said uncertainly, but Kaidan woke immediately

“What’s up?” Kaidan asked, rubbing his eyes. Shepard sat still for a minute, goosebumps rising on his bare torso.

“Having trouble sleeping, I guess.” A tremble raked through Shepard’s sigh, “From here, it doesn’t seem like the world is ending.”

“No, pretty damn peaceful.” Kaidan had blinked the sleep out of his eye, his fingers tracing up and down Shepard’s back, the curves of musculature like waves on the sea. “Seems pretty damn perfect, right here.”

“…are we gonna make it, Kaidan?” Shepard asked.

Kaidan took a moment to answer.

“We’re ready. You’ve put together the people, the vision…”

“I knew this moment was coming. Just feels like I’m forgetting something.”

“You’re a brilliant leader, Shepard.” Kaidan had pressed his body up behind Shepard’s back, still smoothly running a hand up and down his spine. “The fact that you sometimes question yourself makes you an honorable one. You’ve given us… well, you’ve given me… hope.”

“I’m glad I inspire that in you, but sometimes…” He slumped. Kaidan’s gaze was sure and steady when he looked back up. Shepard touched his face, smoothed a hand across his chest. Kaidan leaned into every touch, but never stopped watching Shepard’s expression. “You’re right, give people hope and a fighting chance… Hell, the Reapers better watch themselves.”

He laid a kiss on Kaidan’s mouth, loving and tired. Shepard slid off the edge of the bed, crossing his arms across his chest against the shiver wracking his body. He approached the pile of clothes near the couch, but then turned away toward the aquarium instead.

“You’re cold,” Kaidan said: a fact and not a question.

“Yeah. Nothing new, there.”

Kaidan rose and pulled the blanket off the bed with him. Rather than wrapping it around Shepard, he swung it over his own shoulders, spreading his arms wide stretching the blanket like a billowing cape, came up behind Ben and wrapped his arms and the blanket around him.

“Y’know, when this all started, Shepard, I never thought my life would be like this. I never would’ve thought that I’d be standing at the end of the world with the man I love. A man I thought I lost forever,” he gave a wry chuckle, “The stoic Commander Shepard. Always asking questions, never answering yours.”

Shepard lowered his head exposing his neck to Kaidan’s hot breath. Kaidan continued:

“Shore leave was pretty great. All those nights up here too. And I know out there, when you’re back in uniform something clicks in you, and you become Commander Shepard again. I get it, I do. And I would’ve accepted it on any other day.” The arms around Shepard’s chest now draped themselves over his shoulders, “But not tonight. Tonight it’s the end of the world and the rules have gone out the window. You were about to tell me something important, and then you became Commander Shepard, and you told me what you thought I wanted to hear. That’s not good enough for me, Ben. Not after everything. Tell me what you were going to tell me.” Shepard turned in Kaidan’s arms and buried his face in Kaidan’s neck. “You said: ‘I’m glad I inspire that in you, but sometimes…’” Kaidan said, pulling Shepard tighter into his chest. “Sometimes what?”

“Sometimes I need hope, Kaidan. And I don’t have a lot of it. I told Leviathan that this cycle was different. Leviathan thought I was different, special. People have told me I’m different… I think maybe everyone’s going to die. And I know people have hope, I really do know that. But that’s not good enough. I know we have the biggest fleet in history, but _that’_ s not good enough. I know I’m never going to be more ready than I am right now, but that’s not good enough either, dammit! And if all that hope, if the whole galaxy’s hope is riding on me and I’m afraid that… I’m afraid…”

Kaidan kissed Shepard’s temple.

“Okay, Ben. Okay.” Kaidan inhaled and exhaled softly for a moment, “You’re right. We love to imagine happy endings. It gets us through the hard choices, the unfair choices we shouldn’t have to make. I’ve… imagined…. Plenty of happy endings to this thing. Where life goes on for… for the two of us. Where we build a life together.” Kaidan’s breath hitched, “I can’t speak for the galaxy. And as long as we’re being honest,” he chuckled, “I’m reserving the call on whether or not I think I’m going to make it through the next week until I see what Earth looks like.” The chuckle died in his throat, but Shepard smiled into his shoulder anyway, “But I’m not afraid to die. If I do, this is my happy ending, Ben. And I meant it when I said I never imagined an ending this good. I know I can’t make you believe that. But your story isn’t the story of the whole galaxy, Shepard.”

“Hmm,” Shepard sighed heavily, his arms wrapping tighter around the other man.

“We made a lot of promises to each other. I know that in the state you’re in right now, you don’t know if those are promises we can keep.  Before this is over, we might have to break some of those promises, and not because we want to… Promises we’d live through this, promises we would never abandon each other. But… but no matter what happens… I want you to know… that I love you. Always.”

“I love you too.”

“That’s all I need to hear.” After a moment Kaidan began steering Ben back toward the bed, “It’s still hours before we need to be up, let’s try to get a bit more sleep, huh?”

“Yeah. Just hold me for a while, okay?”

“You don’t even have to ask.”

“I just… I…”

“Shepard. Shh.”

“I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here ends what is, sort of, the spiritual Second Part of The Difference between the Sea and the Sky. The rest of the story will be posted to this same work, but there's a bit of a tone shift moving forward. The next Part will take place after the game has ended. We'll finally be out of canon territory.
> 
> Next Chapter:  
> The Crucible wave activates.


	38. The Difference between Wounds and Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan is left behind. Shepard fires the Crucible. The Normandy is fleeing the explosion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the beginning of the unofficial Part 3 of the Difference between the Sea and the Sky and goes post-canon. It's designed so that, if you were not into mid-game fics, you could begin reading here. If you've been reading the whole thing, you'll get a lot more out of it, though. In fact, I'm posting this to m'tumblr as a stand-alone story called 'Field Command'. We'll see if it works?

Major Kaidan Alenko, second human Spectre, had assumed field-command of the Normandy SR-2.

Clinging to his bed in the medbay as the ship bucked hard against the inertial dampeners, careening out of Earth’s atmosphere above London, he struggled against unconsciousness, barking orders up to Joker on the bridge.

Not long after, he pitched against the bulkhead when the Joker made the jump to FTL.

Clawing his way up the wall of the lift on his way to the CIC, as if treading against a tidal surge.

The lift doors opened to a holographic projection of the Citadel where the galaxy map should be, spread open like the limbs of a looming kraken. The projection flickered, flared; the massive ward arms spun with a sickening speed, stretched to their limit.

While the rest of the crew clung to their seats, heads tucked in and eyes squeezed shut, Kaidan stumbled against the rocking of the ship up the gangway.

He never saw the hologram behind him dissolve.

The flash as the Crucible activated.

Normandy was the last vessel out of the Sol System: registered the cloud of Reapers which choked the system shut down nearly simultaneously.

Then, as if struck by a wave, the ship lurched forward, Kaidan almost coming off his feet in the sudden rush that followed: Joker’s jump through the Charon Relay was textbook perfect, engaging FTL the second they emerged.

But the energy of the Crucible wave amplified through the Relay Network caused a tremendous explosion. The Sol Relay’s eezo core melted down, the quantum shielding stripped, the gyros buckling under the force, and unleashed a radiation surge on anything close enough to be caught in the wake.

The Crucible’s feedback wave traveled many times the speed of light, a massless tunnel become a massless sphere for untold lightyears around each Relay, and Normandy on the crest of the wave, thrashing in the foam.

Kaidan touched the hastily sealed wounds beneath his uniform shirt, his reconstructed leg buckling when a panel nearby sparked and shattered amid screaming on the gangway.

The ship’s AI seized and failed.

He pried open the door to the bridge, hauled EDI’s limp body out of the co-pilot’s chair, grabbing control of the auxiliary navigation control.

“…static overcharge…” Jeff cried, the only words that could be heard over the straining of the ship and the flaming panels.

Traveling at FTL, the wave had totally flooded the Normandy’s sinks. Tali shouted over the comms about an imminent overload. In a desperate move, Jeff dropped out of FTL within ten-thousand kilometers of a planet’s atmosphere. But it was a tiny terrestrial world, and the magneto-sphere couldn’t leach off the charge fast enough. They needed to touch down.

Joker made one call to Tali and Adams, and the entire ship went dead.

The shine of the garden world loomed in the cockpit window. The sounds of the ship disappeared, only Kaidan and Joker’s shuddering breaths and the crackled of flaming panels broke the silence. All at once, there was a deep throb beneath the deck, and the haptic interfaces blinked on: limited thrusters and comms the first systems rebooted.

The Normandy plummeted into the atmosphere, the blue halo of static discharge mingling with reentry fire. Jeff rigged the ship to drag through the stratosphere, but without primary thrusters the ship sank into the air.

Joker barked out to reroute power, blowing out the emergency thrusters in a single blast as they canon-balled through the cloud cover. Their descent slowed, the aura around the ship crystalized into a bolt of static discharge. They crackled through the undergrowth and skidded, lurched to a sudden stop on a verdant coastal ridge.

Joker stared at his holo a moment longer, expression frozen. The sound of the hull rapidly cooling around them finally coaxed out Joker’s victorious laughter. Kaidan unbelted himself from the co-pilot’s chair, bolted for a fire extinguisher. He clambered over to where Traynor and Liara lay sprawled out on the deck just outside the cockpit. When they both waved him off he took off down the gangway. The crew all through the CIC sat stunned, so he ran from fire to fire until people began to come back to their senses.

The situation holo showed the Normandy with a hundred blinking error conditions, the galaxy map showed a hundred gaps in the galactic blueprint before losing connection with the Relay buoys entirely. The crew stumbled back to stations, all smiling nervously at Kaidan where he stood solemnly with his emptied extinguisher: a gaggle of dirty faces, bruised foreheads, and disheveled hair. Laughter bubbled up from one corner of the CIC and before long the whole compartment was laughing and hugging.

Kaida dropped his extinguisher and turned back up the gangway, barreling for the bridge, past where Traynor and Liara were hoisting up EDI’s limp form to rest it in a chair.

“Shepard?” His voice cut through Joker’s whooping and hollering like a blade. “What’s the situation with Shepard?”

Joker’s expression fell, unable to break Kaidan’s gaze.

“Kaidan… I…”

There was a hand on Kaidan’s shoulder, but he didn’t look away.

 “We got out just in time, Kaidan,” Liara said softly, taking Kaidan’s arm. “If Joker would’ve waited another minute more, we’d all be dead.”

“He’s still back on the Citadel, though?” He still stared at Joker, jaw tight. “He made it up to the Citadel? Did he make it to the Citadel? He was the one that activated the Citadel?”

“Umm, yeah.” Joker struggled to his feet, “Hackett… umm… Hackett reached him on the Crucible, Anderson too. But we lost Anderson’s signal—“

“Did we lose Shepard’s signal?” Kaidan took a step forward. “He made it? He’s alive? He activated the Crucible!”

“We think it was him, yeah…”

“Major,” Traynor stepped in front of Joker, “There was a… a reaction when the Commander fired the Crucible…”

“So he’s still… up there?”

“I… didn’t want…” Jeff sputtered, and his voice left him, strangled sounds like the cooling of the ship’s hull.

Kaidan paled, closed his eyes…

…and when he opened them again, he wore a broad smile, offered his hand to Jeff, who took it with a look of confusion on his face.

“You just saved all of us Jeff. Best damn pilot in the galaxy.” Jeff raised an eyebrow, but smiled, “Now if we can just find out where the hell you landed us!” He let out a throaty chuckle.

Joker struggled to find his voice and mirror the laugh, albeit awkwardly.

“Figured we could all use a break on a garden world after that fight… sir.”

“Hell yes,” Kaidan nodded, his gaze not wavering for a moment. “Well, let’s get some scans so we can get the door open, huh?”

It took a little while, with EDI shut down, most of the computer systems had to be rebooted from scratch before they could scan anything outside the ship. Finally a junior officer still panting hard in his work station by the airlock confirmed the atmosphere was fully breathable, and Joker limped to the airlock to begin jimmying with the manual override. Kaidan gave orders to get the power running and requested a full damage report, but as he turned to help with the door, Liara pulled him aside.

“Major—Kaidan,” she urged, tight grip on Kaidan’s arm. “I was the one who told Jeff to leave the Sol System. He didn’t want to. He would’ve waited for Shepard.” She struggled to meet his eyes.

For a moment he only stared, swallowing hard. His brow wavered a moment.

“…why are you telling me this, Liara?” His voice was even, thick.

“Because… I know how you must be feeling right now. And I know what Jeff is feeling right now… and—“

“Thank you, Liara,” he shook his head. “I’m worried, but I’m alright. I know my priorities.” He rested a hand on her shoulder, “We’re all alive right now because you and Joker made the right call.”

“…and because Shepard found a way to activate the Crucible,” she said, meeting Kaidan’s eye at last. A flood of sunlight lit the corridor, and sweet-smelling air roused the stray lock on Kaidan’s forehead. Liara continued to search Kaidan’s expression, but any emotion was lost when he squinted against the sunlight.”

“He did.”

“I’m sorry… but there was an explosion—“

Kaidan held up a hand, his mouth twisting into a raw grimace. He swallowed the look of disgust and his face settled into a measured smile. He shook his head slowly and stepped out into the sunshine, carefully stepping down to stand by Jeff. The two surveyed the landscape, looked back on the hull, and Joker looked genuinely pleased with himself. Kaidan returned the smile.

They were high up, leafy trees thick around a rocky natural clearing nearby. The taller bluffs on either side were glittering with a cascading waterfall, and the sea stretched on below them past a monolithic tidal plain. It was glassy and a Mediterranean blue, a deeper and more enigmatic hue than the evening sky above. It was the moment of the evening where the earth and the sea are at equilibrium, no wind stirring leaves or water alike. The wisps of clouds hung over them like frozen paint strokes.

Kaidan turned his face upwards, the sickle of one of the planet’s locked inside the larger sickle of the other, waning down to nothing. The reflection didn’t show in the ocean below.

“You did it, Jeff. Most impressive flying I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“Compared to navigating the other end of the Omega-4 relay, this was nothing.”

“Yeah.” He breathed in the air rising up from the bay, “Guess I wasn’t there for that.”

“Umm… right…” Joker adjusted his cap against the glare from the low sun, “I… umm… did it without any help from EDI this time though, so I guess that gives me bragging rights... Once we get her rebooted, I’m gonna really lay into her for falling asleep on the job, huh?”

“Uh huh.” Kaidan chuckled, turning his gaze back to the horizon.  “It’s beautiful here.”

“Yeah, I guess so, huh? If trees are your thing. And… waterfalls and stuff. Can’t remember the last time I was planet side.”

“Yeah. Peaceful.” Kaidan watched the spread of the sea, the way the shards of light the sunset spackled on the surface of the water, the green and purple depths below. “Almost makes you forget we were even fighting a war at all.”

“Kaidan… I tried to wait…” Joker began. “I wanted—“

“No.” Kaidan rested a hand on his shoulder, “You did the right thing. You did the right thing.”

“Yeah, then how come it feels like I didn’t?”

“Even the right choice comes with consequences,” Kaidan said quietly.

“You don’t really sound like you believe that, Kaidan.” Joker’s chuckle was hollow.

Kaidan smiled, inhaled carefully.

“I think I believe it more than ever.”

“Right.” Joker eased Kaidan’s hand off his shoulder and turned back to the airlock, “Well I’m gonna reboot EDI so we can get some diagnostics run. Hopefully get a little chance to celebrate my expert flying before we start repairs too, eh?”

++

EDI wasn’t coming back.

Restoring main power and resetting the AI interface yielded the start-up protocols for an elementary VI, code almost completely corroded away. The sheer amount of data mangled in the network was the corpse of a virtual construct with vast capabilities, but the personality subroutines were utterly devastated.

Repairing the ship would take days, longer than expected with Tali given the sole duty of attempting to restore EDI’s original matrix. Despite the crash, the damage to the Normandy was minimal: a few peripheral circuits fried, minor structural compromise. Ultimately, the largest challenge would be boosting enough power to the mass effect generators to lift a ship that was never meant to land. Unfortunately, the crew had not been trained in handling many of the particular systems that EDI had managed below the surface. Engineer Adams and his team were left either doing the work themselves, or spending hours training other crew members how to repair certain systems.

By the time Kaidan reported back to the medbay, he was barely able to hide the stain of blood seeping through his shirt. But Chakwas didn’t scold, instead sending the junior officers being treated for bruises away with some analgesic cream and locking the door behind them. She made the windows opaque before beckoning Kaidan back onto a table.

His wounds from Earth had torn back open around the medigel she had used when he had demanded he needed to get to the bridge ASAP. His leg had refractured despite her splint. Kaidan didn’t say a word as she stitched him closed and dissolved the medigel. He allowed his leg to be tractioned into place with crying out, staring at the ceiling while the doctor knit it back together. When the comms called for him, he didn’t even answer.

Chakwas had already removed his bloody uniform and offered him a shirt, which he tucked in and composed the collar before thanking the doctor and making a beeline for new clothes. For a moment on his way, he had stopped outside the lift, ready to go up to the loft. Then he returned to his unused bunk and locker in the Crew Quarters and retrieved a uniform shirt. It was still nicely pressed.

By the time he reappeared in the CIC, he was slapping backs and helping repair consoles. Kaidan kept morale high, even despite the rationing he instituted, saying there was no knowing how damaged the Relays were, or how long it would take them to get home. There were several crates of alcohol in the shuttle bay which Shepard had purchased after shore leave, and Kaidan ordered them all broken out.

There was a celebration outside on the mountaintop that night, with the promise of a memorial service in the coming days to remember ‘the fallen.’ But no one on the crew had suffered anything more than a scrape or bruise, except Garrus and Kaidan.

Except for Shepard. And EDI.

When he got curious looks, Kaidan told the crew they would be honoring every name on the memorial wall, not just putting new names on it. It was the end of the war, after all.

Still, the crew took to the party as if they were starving for the celebration. Dancing, laughing, drinking, calls of “Fuck the Reapers!” and teasing to go skinny dipping in one of the waterfall pools.

Joker, Traynor, and Tali stayed in to work on EDI. Liara hadn’t been seen in hours. Garrus, on shaking legs and covered in bandages, didn’t stay long, and spoke little. Javik watched from the sidelines. James danced hard, but wouldn’t speak to anyone. Cortez kept the music rolling all night long, but wouldn’t dance himself.

Kaidan—however—talked and laughed, bowed out of any invitation to dance, and waited until it was clear that anyone still out was on their last leg before heading in.

“Naw,” he demurred when officers noticing him leaving clamored for a speech. “Tonight’s for blowing off steam, not speeches!”

There was several young crew members passed out on the floor of the Starboard Observation Lounge in the darkness: not enough beds and sleeping pods for everyone on the crew to be sleeping all at once. The Port Observation Lounge was still abuzz with activity. Engineering was torn apart, wires and debris everywhere, more people were sleeping in the shuttle bay: they’d picked up quite a few marines from entrenched positions before leaving Earth. And it seemed many of the pods were empty: people seemed to not want to be alone tonight.

Kaidan entered the lift, stared at the control that would take him to the top of the ship: to the Captain’s quarters.

He resolutely pressed the button for the CIC, instead.

Amid the emergency lights on the bridge, he slumped into the corner on the floor and considered the data-pad in his hands. It was everything their sensors and cameras had recorded from their touch-down on Earth. He had asked Samantha to compile records, vids, and readouts from the Battle over Earth for him to review.

“For my report,” he’d said.

“For history!” Samantha had replied.

He had been carrying the data-pad with the compilation for hours now, idly deleting certain entries based on titles alone until he had narrowed the archive down to certain key moments featuring Shepard. The data-pad flickered to life now and Kaidan watched.

Cortez crash landing after dropping off the ground team to begin their push into the FOB. The Normandy had dropped down to retrieve the shuttle and a number of entrenched marines once the ground team had cleared the AA turrets. EDI’s cyber warfare suite was proving the most effective weapon the fleet had: the sound of her voice, calmly announcing the deployment of a remodulated kill frequency, confusing and disabling a Reaper capital ship for long enough for the fleet to converge and destroy it.

Hackett ordered the Normandy down into the atmosphere while Hammer made its final push to gain access to the Citadel. EDI’s cyber warfare suite jamming any orbital bombardment, forcing Harbinger itself to expose itself by landing on the ground to annihilate the resistance.

Kaidan saw his own bio stats, watched the radar screen, each soldier’s name floating above the little triangle that represented them. There was Shepard. Right behind him was Kaidan, close enough where their names overlapped on the layout. Garrus was just behind that, bio stats steady as the two Spectres. It looked like the main force of the Reaper resistance was north of the beacon, engaged with the feint the militia was committing, while Shepard and Hammer approached from the south. The Reaper ground forces engaged the militia forces, and the civilian soldiers, no more than digital shapes with floating names, blinked out of existence one-by-one as they met the hoard. Once they were all dead, the remaining Reaper forces turned to the South.

Suddenly, despite the lack of ground resistance, the southern Hammer wing began dying in droves: Harbinger’s beam.

Shepard called for an emergency evac, the sound of Kaidan’s gasping breath coming through the comms channel. Joker argued a moment, the Sword forces were taking heavy casualties. The next moment he closed the channel and dove down from the stratosphere, the sudden assault from EDI’s cyber warfare staggering Harbinger.

The record switched over, and Kaidan watched as he appeared on the Normandy’s docking bay camera. Blood spattered his face, a piece of his armor having exploded by the heat of the Reaper’s beam, the fragments embedded in his side. He was staggered, Garrus didn’t looked much better, but held him up and held him back when Shepard turned back into the fray.

> _“Shepard!”_
> 
> _“You’ve gotta get out of here Kaidan!”_
> 
> _“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen!”_
> 
> _“Don’t argue with me, Kaidan!”_
> 
> _“Don’t leave me behind…”_
> 
> _“No matter what happens… know that I love you. Always.”_

Kaidan’s grip on the data-pad tightened and he stopped the playback, leaned his head against the wall. The stars were burning bright out the cockpit, this world was deeper into its galactic arm than Earth, fewer constellations and more a frenetic static of stars blanketing the sky.

“Come on, Alenko. You gotta keep watching.” He swallowed the rising lump that was trying to choke him and resumed the recording, watched himself take Shepard’s hand, press it against his cheek:

_“I love you too… be careful…”_

Shepard backed down the ramp as if the was more to say, but an explosion on his six startled his mind back into the fight. He shouted for them to go, and the Normandy was hovering off the ground before Garrus had pulled Kaidan all the way up the ramp.

Inside the shuttle bay, Garrus collapsed, Kaidan falling on top of him with a pained cry as his support gave out. Garrus’ leg was messily snapped in half, he was a crumpled pile of armor and blood on the deck, hyperventilating, body in shock.

_“Get him to medbay_ now! _”_ The Kaidan on the recording shouted to the deck personnel and the stupefied marines they’d evaced from the fray. He frantically motioned for one of the remaining marines to come to him, and grabbed him by the shoulder, hoisting himself to standing with a wince, all but pulling the marine with him to the lift. _“EDI, we need to take out Harbinger, what can you do?”_

_“I have managed to stun his capability to fire while making this rescue,”_ Even EDI sounded harried “ _I have cycled through 1,883 modulations of my cyber warfare suite already.”_ The Normandy hovered off the ground, eye-to-eye with the quiescent Reaper. “ _I am attempting to seize up power to his forward canon, I have already significantly limited its power… however a group of Reaper capital ships has begun to converge on the Crucible…”_

_“We need to trust Shepard. We’re the best bet the Crucible has. Get back into orbit.”_ On the recording, Kaidan stumbled, and when the marine with him popped the pressure seal on Kaidan’s chest plate in the lift, blood spattered the walls.

His eyes flickered and he collapsed against the wall of the elevator.

The radar showed Shepard’s triangle rush the beacon, then go dark.

As the Normandy’s camera showed Garrus and Kaidan arriving in the medbay, two triangles on the schematic—one bearing Anderson’s name approaching from the west, and the other flickering on and off bearing Shepard’s name—reappeared. As the Reaper ground forces swept around the beacon to flood the southern side of the beam, Harbinger lifted up to chase after the Normandy. Both lights reached the beacon, disappeared.

Kaidan watched the vid of himself on the medbay cameras, slipping in and out of consciousness as Chakwas cut Garrus out of his armor with a laser-scalpel, calmly calling out orders to the three marines whom she had named her nurses until triage was performed. Garrus came very close to death, Kaidan held onto consciousness despite his phenomenal loss of blood. Chakwas worked a miracle on both soldiers as Joker piloted the Normandy back into the fray above Earth.

Having utilized most of her tricks on Harbinger, EDI and Joker had taken to a more classic offensive position. The fleet announced over the comms that the Crucible had been activated, but the Normandy—flying close—was detecting no energy build-up of any kind. EDI intercepted a transmission from Hackett to Shepard, informing him of the situation in space. A moment later, Shepard’s spotty signal moved 30 meters then blipped out.

The Citadel arms opened, then, nothing.

> _“This is Admiral Hackett to Command, Normandy”_ Hackett commed when Shepard disappeared, _“We’re not reading Shepard anymore, you’ve got a better handle on the situation inside the Citadel, what the hell’s going on in their?”_
> 
> _“Admiral, this is Flight Lieutenant Moreau, Major Alenko is currently… uh… looks like he’s in medbay. We’ve lost Shepard’s signal too on this end.”_
> 
> _“We need to start making decisions here. Can you tell me if he’s dead or not?”_
> 
> _“No way, Admiral. Shepard’ll see this through. We just need to be ready to swing in with the rescue.”_
> 
> _“Admiral,” EDI cut in._
> 
> _“Go ahead.”_
> 
> _“The Reapers have stopped directing any fire at the Crucible, this may be a sign that the Commander has achieved some incremental success. I recommend the following tactical repositioning.”_
> 
> _“We’ve just noticed that, Normandy. We’ll give Shepard a little more time, then we’re going to have to make some tough choices.”_

The battle held on for another twelve minutes, when suddenly the Normandy picked up a massive power surge inside the Crucible. The fleet was ordered back to the relay, but Joker doubled back to within five kilometers of the Crucible even as the surge built and the rest of the fleet jumped to FTL.

At last, the Normandy fled, orbital vid transmissions still relayed as the ship raced to the outer edge of the system.

Kaidan stared down at the data-pad.

The Presidium Ring exploded.

The force was enough to rip apart the Ward arms. Where the Crucible had been docked, there was an expanding debris field.

He gave a strangled cry that grew into a scream, threw the data-pad into the bulkhead, crumpling into himself with a sob. He lay a long time on the floor, each time he managed to calm himself, another crash of weeping would shake through his body. An hour later he had composed himself, walked to the elevator with an assured stance. He hesitated a long moment before pressing the control which would take him to the Captain’s quarters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much, to everyone who takes the time to read this story. It's very close to my heart, and so are you.
> 
> Next Chapter:
> 
> Assessing the real damage.


	39. The Difference between Off and On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Normandy is still stranded on a distant world, and the crew are trying to repair the ship and deciding how to feel about the recent losses.

**Chapter 39: The Difference between Off and On**

The doors to the lift opened, Liara stood outside the cabin door.

“Kaidan…” she pushed herself up from where she was leaning against the wall, “I thought that you might be…” she gestured to the door, the holo-ring was a deep red. Kaidan huffed.

“Locked away in Shepard’s cabin? No. EDI would always lock and unlock the cabin door on the ride up the lift for Shepard and—“ he swallowed, “…and me.” His omni-tool lit up and he began decrypting the lock, “How long have you been standing out here?”

“Quite a while… I… came to talk to you… I thought you weren’t opening the door,” she smiled weakly, “I’ve been trying to comfort an empty room, apparently.”

Kaidan smiled, placed an arm on Liara’s shoulder.

“Thanks anyway, but I’m alright. Haven’t seen you much today.”

“I’ve been trying to repair what I can of the comms from here. It a strange state to be in, so much radio silence. I’m so used to gathering intel, trying to get a sense of what state the galaxy’s in…” the decryption finally broke the lock, the doors to Shepard’s cabin slid open and the two walked in.

“I shouldn’t be in here,” Kaidan muttered to himself.

“…you are the Captain now…”

“Just trying to find a quiet place to think,” he managed a smirk at Liara, “If I would’ve known your quarters were free I might’ve tried that.”

“If you would’ve come sooner you wouldn’t have found it so quiet,” she sighed, “Samantha came by this evening, rather drunk. I think she needed someone to… comfort her… she was _very_ forward…”

“Oh…?”

Liara shook her head softly, eyes closed, “I think it’s more the alcohol and grief than any real… affection. She’s sleeping it off now.”

“I thought the party might convince people we should be celebrating,” Kaidan picked up the uniform shirt Shepard had left draped over the desk-chair. “We’re heroes. Everyone should be proud of themselves.”

“We’re stranded for now, and… we all miss Shepard.”

“I didn’t want my negative attitude to rub off on the crew.” He let the shirt flop back onto the desk.

Kaidan drifted over to the aquarium, his omni-tool activating. The Aquarium VI had shut down after the Crucible wave, Kaidan rebooted it, but it would take substantial programming before it would be ready to manage the aquarium again. He fed the fish manually.

The models in Shepard’s display case had been jostled in the crash landing, and Kaidan opened the case gently to not disturb the pieces that had fallen against the glass.

The large model of Sovereign had broken a tentacle, Kaidan held it gently. He turned on his omni-tool again, narrowed the fabricator to a fine point and programmed it to produce a thin molecular bonding agent the way he had seen Shepard do. He reached to apply the adhesive to the broken model, but withdrew his hand suddenly. His breath hitched as he tried once more, then pulled back again. He placed the broken model back in the case, hanging it carefully and laying the fractured part on the floor of the case. Liara had inspected the rest of the models and had been hanging the fallen pieces back in place. She cast him a sidelong glance.

“Shepard’ll wanna fix that himself,” he murmured.

“Yes. Of course...”

Kaidan eased himself onto the couch, but Liara kept her back to the room, watching her hands as she wrung them in front of her. The room was still as it had been the night before they engaged Cerberus: two glasses on the table with a residue of whiskey, Kaidan and Ben’s clothes scattered on the floor, the bed disheveled.

Kaidan cursed under his breath, rose and began collecting the clothes indiscriminately, tossing them in a drawer.

“Sorry, the place is a little messy.”

“I just didn’t want you to feel… I was… intruding.” Her eyes had grown glassy, and she moved one glass away from the edge of the table as she sat. Kaidan returned to the couch and placed a hand on her knee; a tear drizzled down her cheek, “I feel so selfish crying when I can’t possibly understand what you’re going through… but Shepard…” When Kaidan placed his arms around her she collapsed into his shoulder, “I try to be strong because I know you still believe…” the words choked her throat and she released a shuddering sigh instead.

“Shh. It’s okay.” He stared off into the fish tank as Liara wept against his shoulder.

“It’s just… The first time Shepard died, I didn’t know what to do. When I recovered his body I thought I had found a way to move on, I became a different person, an information broker,” she sobbed, “but it was two years where I forgot who I was… When he came back, Shepard reminded me what I was and now…”

“I know what you mean.” Kaidan’s tone was level.

“I feel lost without him. I feel so alone.” She leaned away from Kaidan and wiped her eyes, “But… I don’t really deserve to feel that way. It’s not right, me crying for myself in this room… with you…”

Kaidan met her eyes, his expression soaked in weariness, “It’s okay, Liara. I love him. So I love hearing how much he means to people.”

“He came to me when you first began your relationship. Kaidan, he loved you.”

“I know.”

“Do you really believe he may still be alive?” she asked, pulling away.

“I… uh… I think I’ve got to, yeah.” Kaidan’s voice was gravelly, “But I saw the recordings. I can’t really imagine…”

“…maybe we should talk about something else.”

“No, I should talk about it sooner rather than later… When my dad went MIA, it took… a while for me to accept that he was probably dead. But Shepard? I think until… until I see the, uh…” he cleared his throat, “the body… I’m gonna trust that he’s out there. But for the crew? I don’t know what’s best for them: to admit the evidence I see on those recordings, that Shepard is probably dead?”

“If you believe he’s still alive, why not share that hope with the crew?”

“It’s not even a hope, really.” His brow furrowed, “It’s… personal. I believe in Shepard, and for me that means he’s alive until I can prove otherwise. He came back to me once… but for the rest of the crew, maybe he needs to be a martyr. To get them home.”

“I admire your dedication,” Liara had wiped her eyes, he gaze becoming distant. “I _wish_ I had work to bury myself in. It helps me keep down the grief. The… anger.”

“Anger?”

She nodded.

“When I think about all the clues that were right there waiting for us—Javik on Eden Prime, the Archive on Mars, the Temple of Athame right on Thessia! What a waste: all those secrets. How many more lives could we have saved if we’d been ready?”

“You can’t blame yourself, Liara.” Kaidan’s tone was flat, suppressing a weary sigh.

“I don’t,” she folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t know who to blame. But I want to blame someone. My mother, my government. The Council. The Reapers.” She grit her teeth, “I didn’t find Shepard the first time—didn’t hand his body over to Cerberus— _just_ so he could fight the Reapers. He was my friend. He was just a tool to Cerberus, it isn’t fair.”

Kaidan merely nodded, and Liara tried to rub some of the frustration out of her brow.

The pieces of Shepard’s chessboard had all tumbled over and rolled off onto the table, leaving only the glowing holographic half of the game standing.

“Will you be placing his name on the memorial wall?” Liara asked after a moment.

“I haven’t decided. Shepard deserves to be honored with just… just our family, here. Before there’s any kind of flashy ceremony on the Citadel, or another god-forsaken monument somewhere. Before we all go our separate ways.” Kaidan’s breath hitched again and he smoothed his trousers against his bad leg.

“…I see. I’m going to leave you now, Kaidan. If I don’t get some sleep, I won’t be much good to anybody in the morning.” She stood, “And… thank you for being my friend, Kaidan. What you’re going through is a terrible burden, but I believe in you. No matter what it takes, I’m here for you.” The steely look in her eyes dissolved into a soft acceptance, and after Kaidan nodded silently, she let herself out of the room.

Kaidan stared at the whiskey glasses on the table for a long time. Noticing the time, he stood, the many recent sutures on his body hobbling his posture as he walked to the bed, and laid down on his usual side of the mattress.

He stared up through the skylight, the stars twinkling through atmosphere tonight, he looked away. With a shuddering sigh, he rolled to his right to the other side of the bed, pressing his face into Shepard’s pillow. Kaidan lay like that and dozed for almost ten minutes.

Abruptly, he shot out of the bed and returned to the couch, laying out and turning his face blindly into the leather back of the sofa. It took a long time for him to fall asleep.

**++**

The AI core was cold.

The coolant system designed to keep the hardware cool was running at full capacity, but with the Normandy still downed, the impressive CPUs were barely producing any heat. EDI’s body lay enshrined at the far end, Jeff was sitting with his back to her as Kaidan entered.

“Hi, Jeff.”

“Major.” The response was curt. Kaidan approached and hovered over EDI’s motionless form.

“Can I sit?”

“Yeah.” Kaidan slid to the floor next to Jeff, “Something on your mind?”

“I’ve been trying to think of what to say.”

“Me too.”

“I suppose the biggest trouble I’m having is whether or not I’m really ever going to see her again.”

Jeff turned his head, “I thought you’d be saying that about Shepard.”

“I’m thinking about that with Shepard, too.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t want to ask this, Jeff. The memorial service is in an hour. Do you want me to make a plaque for EDI?”

“…are you making one for Shepard?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Well, then I don’t know yet, either.” Jeff lifted the brim of his hat slightly, crossed his arms.

“I told myself,” Kaidan chuckled mirthlessly and rubbed the pain swelling in the back of his neck, “I told myself I’d make up my mind in the next 20 minutes.”

“…she’s not coming back, Kaidan.” Jeff said in a small voice, “She’s gone.”

“You’re sure?”

“Tali says she’s going to keep working on it… but…”

“I’m sorry, Jeff.”

“Back at you.”

“She was a hell of a woman.”

“Yeah. She was. More than anyone deserves.”

“Are you alright?”

“No. Not at all. But I think I will be…”

“You know how she felt about you, right?”

“I guess so.”

“Jeff, you know she was thinking about you to the end, right? She came to me while we were hunting Leviathan… said she was going to make sure you survived this war no matter the cost.”

“Oh.” Jeff was blinking hard. “How the hell do you do it, Kaidan? The Reapers… they took everything from me. My family, everyone, all the friends I had when I was a kid. Commander Shepard, EDI…” he clutched his head and swallowed a sob.

Kaidan shook his head.

“I don’t. I just put on a face when I have to. And then I miss everyone like hell, all the time.” His voice was hollow, “But if it had been me instead of Shepard… I woulda said I had a hell of a life right to the end. And I have had a hell of a life, with all those people. I’m still here. We’re both still here. We’ve got each other. And we’ve had a hell of a life.” Kaidan pulled the grimace on his face into a taut smile, gently rubbed Jeff’s shoulder, and they sat like that for a long time.

“…yeah. Thanks, but… I’ve never felt more alone.” He leaned back against the wall, shivering and tucking his hands under his arms. “Sheesh it’s freezing in here, my nipples could cut glass,” he grunted. It only drew the tiniest chuckle out of Kaidan. “How are you not cold as hell?”

“Biotics,” Kaidan mumbled, watching his breath come out as a puff of curling steam. “High metabolism.”

Joker scoffed.

“Must have gotten pretty toasty when you, Shepard, and Liara all piled into the shuttle.” He tightened his hat on his head and crumpled into himself.

“No,” Kaidan actually laughed. “Shepard’s always cold.” Kaidan let himself slump a bit and leaned his head back against the bulkhead. It was a moment before he noticed Joker looking at him from beneath the brim of his hat, one eyebrow raised. “What?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Kaidan squirmed. “He, uhh, remember after we got back from Despoina? Something happened to him down there. He was hypothermic when he got back to the surface. Ever since… he’s just been cold, all the time.”

“I didn’t know that,” Jeff said softly.

“Yeah. He… didn’t want the crew to worry about him. Knew he needed to be strong for everyone.”

“Sounds like the Commander,” Joker rolled his eyes, shivered. “Always got to be the hero.”

“Always,” Kaidan nodded.

One of the computer modules switched on, and Joker sat up straight all of a sudden. But it was only one of the thruster control mainframes—doubtless had just been transferred away from VI control. He slumped back to the deck and swallowed hard.

 “Make a plaque for EDI. She was one of us.”

“Okay. Would you do her the honor of putting it up yourself?”

“Yeah. Okay.” His voice was thick. “You make up your mind about Shepard’s plaque?”

“…I guess I have.” Kaidan sighed, getting to his feet.

“Kaidan,” Jeff said looking up, his tone remaining steely, “Thanks for keeping morale high. Don’t let this memorial bring everybody down.” Kaidan nodded solemnly, and left Jeff to his own thoughts.

 ++

“So, thing was, I get to the Life Support controls, ‘cuz I told EDI I would fix the tertiary coupler,” Chief Jeffers stared at the deck to avoid the stares on him. The Normandy crew was packed into the corridor, thronged around the memorial wall, people pushing to the wall to allow as many people to hear and see Jeffers in the back of the crowd as possible. “But I… uh, had never done anything with ‘tertiary couplers’ at all! EDI knew I was the only crewman with free time and had offered to help me out, but I said I didn’t need it. Heh. And, like, I guess I was trying to show off or something? Anyway, I get to the Life Support system and I’m… completely lost. And then EDI’s voice came on over the comms and offered to help me, but not before—obviously, right?—getting in a good ribbing! She walked me through the whole thing.” There was a polite murmur of laughter through the group. “I said ‘I didn’t think you had sensor access in here.’ And she said ‘I am always here, Bruce.’”

Chief Jeffers stammered a few more words, and sank back into the crowd with a shrug. They absorbed him once again, and the stony faces turned back to the memorial wall.

“Would anyone else like to say a few words?” Kaidan asked, shoulders squared and facing the crowd.

“EDI’s mobile frame got damaged this one time after a mission,” the crew scuffled to the sides to reveal Gabby grinning up at the wall. “Simple joint-fluid replacement. She asked me what it was like to have blood.” She actually laughed aloud, “And, you know, I don’t know, right? So I told her I didn’t really think about it. And she goes,” Gabby prefaced her paraphrase with wave of her hand, “’Humans place a lot of importance on blood,’ you know how she talked, ‘When you work hard, you put your blood, sweat, and tears into it. When you sacrifice yourself, you shed blood. When you want something to mean something you “sign in blood.”’ And then she got to the… whole ‘if you prick us, do we not bleed?’ thing, calling it ‘a metaphorical representation proving humanity.’” Gabby sighed, “I just told her that blood was, you know, what kept us going. So if you lose it, it means something, right? I don’t know, I _wasn’t_ ready for that kind of talk.

“But she just thanked me anyway,” Gabby shrugged. “ _Then_ she goes ‘There’s nothing like that in the Normandy, nothing that can’t be replaced. Accept the crew. In a way, you are all my lifeblood.’ She was such a… sweetheart! Saying stuff like that. Then she goes ‘But don’t worry, I will not signing Faustian bargains with any member of the crew!’”

Another mumur of laughter, and Gabby fell back.

“She used to talk about how all her emotions were just signals and nitrogen vacancy centers. But even though she was synthetic, it wasn’t like she could just switch off her emotions, just like that. She really did care about every person on this ship,” Tali said after a brief pause. “In a lot of ways, she knew us better than we know ourselves. She knew what kind of lessons she needed from each of us, whether it was talking to me about what it meant to be ‘home,’ or… whatever. It was because she wanted to know herself, and she had faith in all of us. That her friends could help her learn about herself. That’s… what I’ll always remember. That’s who I want to be.”

Kaidan allowed a long moment of silence before finally nodding.

The crowd parted as one as Joker moved up from the back of the assembly, clutching a thin plaque that bore her name. Jeff paused as he regarded the empty space waiting for EDI, he mumbled something to the plaque, and placed it on the wall. Everyone’s shoulders seemed to set, as if the crowd were all breathing out a collective sigh, and the service continued.

Few among the crew had met Admiral David Anderson, only Kaidan and Joker had actually served with him in any capacity. James said a few words on his impression of the Admiral while he was stationed on Earth, and the effect he had on the other soldiers there. Kaidan spoke on the need to hang Anderson’s name on the Normandy’s own wall:

“The Normandy is more than a ship. The Normandy was christened as a sign of collaboration between former enemies. It was an acknowledgement that humanity had been welcomed to the galaxy, and that we have a lot to offer, and a lot to learn. Turned out that first mission became stopping the Reapers. And we _did_ have a _lot_ to offer. And we still have a lot to learn. Everyone on this wall believed in that potential, and they gave everything they had.

“We can never forget that Admiral Anderson was the man entrusted to see this mission through to the end, and all of us gathered are here because of the foundation he laid. He was there at the beginning, he was there at the very end.” Heads bowed up and down the corridor as Kaidan placed the name of Admiral David Anderson in the very center of the memorial, he stepped back into rank with the crew, leading a long salute, “Dismissed.”

The crew dispersed slowly, trickling out to various duty stations, some offering quiet condolences to Joker as they waited for the lift. In a few minutes, the crew deck was empty but for the senior staff, stoically regarding the memorial. Samantha Traynor glanced up at Kaidan under heavy brows,

“Umm, Major. I didn’t want to say anything after you had dismissed the crew but…” She held up one more plaque, “…like you requested.”

Kaidan took the plaque, and the remaining crew seemed to press in just a bit, fidgeting. It read simply ‘Commander Shepard’, not ‘Benjamin Shepard’ to match the names of the crew on the wall, not ‘Lt Cmdr Benjamin Shepard’ to match Anderson’s plaque. Kaidan stepped up to the wall and froze, eyes still locked on Shepard’s name in his hands. He smoothed his fingers over the writing.

“I debated whether or not to hang this up. I didn’t think it was right for my… hope that Shepard’s still alive to stop the crew from honoring his sacrifice.” When he turned around, he smiled weakly, “We have a responsibility to every name on this wall. We keep these people alive through our memories of them. If that’s what this monument is here to remind us of, then Shepard’s name belongs here.” He placed it above Anderson’s name, firmly sealing it to the wall, “My responsibility is to make sure Shepard lives on, for me that means I’m not going to rest until I know that the only way to do that is in memory. We saved the galaxy, and I’m willing to believe in anything, even that we might find a way to take some of these names down.”

Tali nodded firmly when Kaidan was finished, turning to Joker until he finally looked. When she repeated her nod wordlessly for him, Jeff stared back at the floor.

“Samantha,” Kaidan continued, “How long till we can lift off?”

++

It would be just a few more days.  Chief Engineer Adam’s uniform was a mess when Kaidan entered the engine room.

“Adams, how’re you holding up?”

“Just fine, Major.” Adams replied with a heavy lidded stare, “Just about got everybody trained on how to run this ship without… well… without EDI.”

“Yeah. You feel like we’re ready for this trip?”

“I think so, sir. Most of these people had never served on a starship before we got forced out of dry dock. And frankly, with EDI running most of the systems, most of them never learned the operations. Don’t get me wrong, after this whole business with the war, we’ve got some of the best damn analysts you’re ever gonna find, and this crew’s been through a lot more in the last year than most crews do in a career.”

“I’ve been thinking about that. I think we’ll be able to limp back to earth. The ship’s gonna hold up?”

“She sure will. Tough old bird, and Joker brought her down real easy, considering. Had a few fried circuits and some hull damage from the battle over earth. The work detail you assigned has finally cleared away most of the rubble below deck, so we can finally get the last few couplers installed and get the core online.”

“That sounds great. How can I help you out, Adams?”

“Oh,” Adam scratched the back of his neck, “I don’t think we’ll need any extra help. All the War Room analysts are handling the clean-up, and now that I’ve got Tali back… ummm. Well.”

“Uh huh. When was the last time you slept?”

“I got some sleep last night… uhh... 2 hours… but still. I’ve got Kenneth and Gabby sleeping right now, so once we get this next installation underway, Tali and I will get some rest.” He had begun staring off into space, when Kaidan touched him lightly on the elbow, he started, “Uh. Yeah. I’m okay. Anyway, Joker hasn’t been sleeping very much lately either, heard he’s been tossing and turning a lot, seen it too.”

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about that too.”

“Kaidan, with respect, how much sleep have _you_ gotten?”

“More than either you or Joker,” he smiled weakly, “Not to worry.”

“Still, make sure you take some time for yourself… it’s been a rough…” Adams, shook his head and shrugged, “…year?” Kaidan guffawed, and the laughter brought a chuckle out of Adams as well, “Heh, but honestly, Kaidan. Everyone’s got your back on this: commanding the Normandy, _and_ finding the Commander. We all owe him, I wasn’t there for him the first time he came back from the dead, but when he comes back this time, we’re all gonna be with you to welcome him home.”

“Thanks Greg. Let’s just get everyone home safe.”

Kaidan stepped out of engineering and proceeded down the steps to the half deck. Tali was on the floor on her knees, testing the limits on a circuit node. Kaidan grinned widely when she looked up.

“Hey there, Tali. Was hoping I’d find you down here.”

“Kaidan!” She stood up and threw her arms around him.

“Whoa! Hey, how’s it going down here?” He chuckled, gently returning her embrace. She stepped back, the pale eyes behind her mask staring back up at Kaidan.

“We’re doing great actually, everything… it’s going to be just fine. Erm, umm… How are you?” Her voice wavered.

“Tali,” Kaidan rolled his eyes, “Everyone on this ship’s been treating me with kid gloves, it’s driving me crazy.”

“Sorry. Just… doesn’t feel like a victory without Shepard here, y’know?”

“It’s a victory. It is, Tali.”

“I know, I know. It must be hard for you, though.”

“Too busy to think about it much.”

She tilted her head, “I don’t believe that.”

“Yeah, okay.” He chuckled. She rubbed his arm, and for a moment, he actually let his face show the hurt he’d been feeling.

“Thanks for what you said at the memorial. We all needed to hear that, maybe Joker most of all.” She said, crossing her arms, “It was hard to watch him in the AI Core with EDI. He’s been in there a lot. Taking all the maintenance assignments there…”

Kaidan nodded, his face hardening once more as he took a deep, controlled breath.

“Any thoughts on EDI?” he asked.

“ _Keelah_. I’m going to get back to working on her as soon as we get off the ground here. Sorry, I know you told me she was my priority, but Adams has been so swamped down here…”

“It’s okay, Tali.”

“To be honest, I’m not familiar with a lot of her processes. Her AI matrix is completely different from the geth. I’m not an expert with AI systems.”

“Maybe in the Flotilla you’re not, but I’d put your knowledge of VI systems against 99% of the universe.”

“Thanks, Kaidan. Still… I’m not sure anything can be done. Whatever signal the Crucible sent out to kill the Reapers… I don’t know that we can reverse it… There’s so much VI code in the galaxy, on the Citadel, on the Flotilla. And the geth? I don’t… I can’t imagine… I don’t want to think about it.”

“You worried about the geth?”

“Yes. The new geth programming is based on Reaper code…” She paused, then giggled, “Listen to me, a year ago and I would’ve shot a geth platform on sight. Now I’m worried about them.”

“Heh, I know exactly what you mean. When Shepard… uh… when he…” Kaidan stuttered and his eyes fell. Tali threw her arms around him immediately, a little sobbing sound emanating from behind her mask.

“I’m sorry Kaidan! I’m so sorry!”

“Whoa, easy!” Kaidan sputtered, prying himself out of her grip, “I’m okay… really… just it’s hard to think about sometimes and I need to be at 100% for the crew, okay?” Tali nodded sharply and took a step back.

“I… know Shepard loved you very much. You could see it in the way he talked about you. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”

“Thanks. I… know Shepard…” he shook his head, “I’m just not ready to use the past tense yet, is all.”

“Of course.”

“But EDI?”

“…with enough work I might be able to get her to realize she is an AI, but she wouldn’t be the same. The body she was inhabiting still has a lot of who she is hard-coded into nitrogen vacancy centers, but I have nothing to go on to figure out how to get those hardcodings to interact with an AI reboot. There’s never been anything like EDI.”

“And all the VI systems?”

“That’s one thing Adams and I wanted to talk to you about…” Tali jostled the face-plate on her mask, the vocal processor augmenting her sigh. “A lot of the Normandy’s systems are designed to interface directly with the VI. If we reactivate them… it’ll have EDI’s voice, but it won’t be her. It would make the systems more efficient, but—“

“—no.” Kaidan shook his head. “If we can’t get EDI herself back, then I’m not going to turn those systems on again. She deserves better than that, and the crew doesn’t need that reminder.”

“That’s what we were thinking, too. Gabby and I have been decoupling the VI from the key systems. We’re going to be making manual calculations for our FTL jumps, though.”

“We’ve got plenty of analysts without a war to fight,” Kaidan pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Hey,” she hugged him once more, gentler this time. And he held her close. “Find… _someone_ to talk to, Kaidan. You’re hurting deeper than you’re letting on.”

“…Thanks Tali. Get some rest, huh?” He pulled away.

“You too, okay?” Her tone was pleading. Kaidan nodded and turned to leave. “ _Someone_.”

Kaidan smiled once bitterly before ascending the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> The Normandy lifts off, Joker and Kaidan need to have a serious talk.


	40. The Difference between Grief and Exhaustion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Normandy lifts off, Kaidan and Joker have an important conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna start ramping up how often I post. Twice a week? Thrice a week? What's 'too much?' The story's been done for 18 months, so I'm eager to just GET IT OUT.

“It was built in space, it was never designed to do this!” Tali’s voice was muffled coming from inside an access hatch, only her feet protruding into the engine room. “Do you have _any_ idea how many new phase inverters I had to build from scratch?”

James stood on the deck outside the hatch, arms laden with a bundle of fiber-optic wires as thick as his waist.

“That doesn’t make sense,” he grunted, trying to adjust the load in his arms and almost dropping it. “I was on the Normandy when we picked up the Commander in Vancouver, and in London. It was no problem.”

Tali’s feet rotated around, the sound of her hips bumping against the metal inside the tube.

“That’s different,” she scuffled a bit and her feet disappeared inside the hatch, green sparks flashing out onto the deck. When she spoke again, James had to lean in to hear her: “The mass effect has to counter-balance the thrusters or the engines. You want 15 _ke’shevras_ of force accelerating three _ke’shevras_ of ship, not one _xilov’ai_ trying to accelerate a 15 _ke’shevras_ ship! That’s ridiculous!”

“…Sparks, you got to put that in smaller words. Or just real words.”

“…so normally the thruster control directly feeds through the mass effect generator,” Tali carried on, distorted voice barking out over a noise like a buzz-saw through sheet metal from deep in the hatch. “I need to remodulate them to be on separate nodes, but once we’re back in space, we’ll have to _completely_ reconstruct the old system. Otherwise we’ll get 900 _ke’shevras_ of force accelerating 6 _xilov’ai_ and then our fuel efficiency drops by 32% and that’s just the _start_ of our problems!”

“Alright, alright,” James groaned. “I get it.”

“The Normandy _belongs_ up there,” Tali carried on, her voice assuming a wistful tone. “Out in the stars. Up in the sky, with the solar-wind under its pylons! And I’m going to do whatever it takes to put her back where she belongs.”

“Careful sparks, or you’re gonna steam up that helmet of yours,” James replied, dryly.

“You have to sweet-talk a ship if you want to repair it, didn’t you know?”

The green flashes became a deep red and, with a crash from within the access hatch, Tali let out a string of curse words.

“…okay.” James’ arms had begun to quiver with the bundle he’d been holding, and his eyes were crossed to watch the tip of his nose, wiggling it with an ever increasing urgency. “You about ready for these, Sparks?”

“What?” came a muffled reply.

“What?”

“What!?”

“Do you want these wires!?” James shouted, “You said you were almost ready—“

“I’m almost ready for them!”

“—twenty minutes ago!”

James had begun to grind his nose into the fiber-optic cables, violently trying to scratch the itch. A gloved hand appeared out of the access hatch.

“Hand me the green one, would you?”

James stared down at the bundle, still alternatingly scratching his nose against the cables. There were hundreds of wires. He turned them over in his arms, bending his knees to get his weight underneath the load. Tali’s hand made a grabby motion.

“ _Mierda_ , there’s a million green ones!”

“The _light_ green one!”

“There’s a million _light_ green ones!”

“It’ll be a little bit thicker than the other ones.”

James rolled his eyes.

Tali poked her head out the hatch and immediately grabbed a wire and tugged it with her back into the bowels of the ship. James leaned after just a bit and opened his mouth for a come-back--

“There,” Kaidan said, standing nearby covered in sweat, stooped over a console. “That’s it Tali. I’ve got a signal up here.”

James went quiet when Kaidan spoke. It had been almost an hour since the Major had sent Adams to bed and volunteered to help out in engineering. Almost 50 minutes since he’d said anything.

“Okay,” Tali hauled herself out of the access tube and huffed down on to the deck. “Well, it’s the first step, at least.”

“Wait, what about the rest of _this_?” James jostled the load of cables.

“Once I get this next access hatch open, I’ll show you,” Tali adjusted her head-covering and began fiddling with the next hatch over.

“You sure it’s safe for you in there, Sparks? It’s, uh, not gonna rip your suit or anything, is it?”

“Please!” Tali scoffed, wrenching the hatch out of the bulkhead. “This ship is so Cerberus-perfect I couldn’t breach my suit if I wanted to! My bunk on the flotilla had more sharp edges than this access tube!”

“Famous last words,” James kicked the panel out of his way and dragged the long string of cables with him.

Kaidan had taken to staring blankly at the console read-out, and Tali touched him lightly on the shoulder.

“Thanks Kaidan, I think we can take it from here. Give me another five hours and we should be able to lift-off.”

Kaidan nodded curtly and rose to his feet. James and Tali watched him leave and exchanged a look.

++

The Major took up his old seat in the co-pilot’s chair after making the announcement to prepare for lift-off.

The engine core came online without a hitch, the ship lightly shuddering as the mass effect fields lowered its effective mass to practically nothing. Jeff kept a steady hand on the thruster controls, but as soon as he had lifted the nose to a suitable exit trajectory, he punched the throttle, and Kaidan was jerked into the back of his chair before the inertial dampeners registered the acceleration.

They needed to orbit for a few hours while the engineering team pulled out all the wires they’d spent the day installing and recalibrated everything.

“Nice lift-off, Joker,” Kaidan unbelted from his seat and stood, clapping the pilot on the shoulder. “We’ve got a while, grab some shut-eye, huh?”

“Thanks but I think I’ll get some stuff fixed-up up here,” Joker replied. “I’m about to spend a lot of time in this chair, so I better make sure it’s comfortable. Maybe try to find some music… something to keep me busy while I fly. Something.”

Kaidan stood a moment later before nodding.

He spent the next several hours in the CIC, overseeing the crew as they tried to get any kind of tight-beam signal through. It didn’t seem like the relay buoy was responding, and the longer they worked at it, the more the crew began to drag their feet, shoulders slumping.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Kaidan laughed from the raised platform above the galaxy map—still flashing red from a loss of signal—“It’s been a while since we got to really test out the ‘fastest ship’ in the galaxy, huh? What’s say we put all that Cerberus money to work and push this thing up to full throttle?”

That got a chorus of applause around the CIC, and with a couple more comments like that as the hours ticked by, the crew was practically bouncing from interface to interface. Laughing, whistling, joking with Kaidan as they passed him on the gangway.

Sure enough, though, the Mass Relay they’d exploded through fleeing Earth was not receiving their input when they came back upon it. The super-structure had a wide crack down its length, and only one of its gyros was spinning.

“There’s _some_ activity through the buoys,” Traynor told Kaidan, the two of them huddled over a holographic schematic of the relay buoys lacing the system. “Without the Relay operational, it’s obviously not receiving any signals, but there’s enough activity going on that… well… it’s definitely still _trying_ to pick up a signal!”

“How does that help us?” Kaidan frowned.

“Well, Primary relays have buoys that are entangled in pairs,” she cracked her knuckles. “Not like a QEC—just enough to register the relative position of the Relay so that calculations can be made between the two, to take into account for orbital changes over time or what-have-you. Or, well, we _thought_ they were entangled, but after seeing the way the Crucible wave functioned, it might be more like that, basically a tight-beam of massless space just enough for small-packets of data—“

“Uh huh,” Kaidan raised his eyebrows and Traynor cleared her throat.

“Anyway. Umm, it’s still receiving that signal, even though the buoy can’t actually access the Relay to send comm signals.”

“So that means that… somewhere, the Relays are still working?”

Samantha nodded.

“And, well, that entanglement signal has always been a theory, but normally the amount of data going through the buoys is so extreme it was impossible to see—honestly, I almost missed it myself. But we never would’ve seen it without the Relay dead.”

“Good job noticing it, then.”

“Thank you, Major.” She nodded, “It’s a bit exciting… well… assuming we ever get back to Earth—not that I don’t think we will—but with the rest of the galaxy rebuilding, maybe it isn’t such a big deal, but—“

“No, what’s up, Traynor?” Kaidan asked gently.

“Well, this signal could be the key to Reaper communications, how they coordinated in dark space without relay buoys, how Sovereign’s signal with the Citadel would’ve worked… it could be the key to faster than light communication!” She demurred suddenly, “But don’t worry, I will keep _everything_ focused on getting this crew home!”

“I know you will, “ Kaidan chuckled. “No, take a look at it. We’re gonna have plenty of time for personal projects over the next… however long. Take a look, see what you can figure out.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely.”

“ _Thank you_ , Kaidan. I’ll get started.”

Unfortunately, Normandy’s own QEC was offline, a detail of engineers attempting to reprogram the VI interfaces to make it operational. But there was a good chance that none of the QEC units it was connected to were still operational. It seemed no other Alliance vessel—no vessel participating in the final assault on Earth, even—had made it as far out as the Normandy had.

They were alone in the galaxy.

Kaidan met with two junior officers who had put together an FTL route back to Sol. A straight line back to Alliance space was impossible, so the proposed route spent weeks weaving back and forth between star systems to minimize the time traveling in interstellar space. The route was peppered with gas giants to extract helium-3 fuel from, as well as burn off excess static build-up. Adams was already working with the former war games analysts to retrofit the Normandy to refine helium-3 into usable fuel.

Alternatively, they could do slightly more weaving and see if they could find a functional Mass Relay.

It was a gamble. Searching for operational Relays would double the trip time, but at any point they could find a functional Relay and be home in hours. Then again, depending on how damaged the Relay system on whole was, accessing a Primary Relay could leave them stranded on the other side of the galaxy.

Kaidan ordered the route recalculated to pass as many Relays as possible.

Twelve hours later, and proximity alarms went off in the CIC as the Normandy jumped out of FTL dangerously close to their first gas-giant. Kaidan ran to the bridge as Jeff put the ship in a stable orbit.

“Joker, are you alright?”

“Yeah, sorry about the close call, Major.” Joker’s eyes were narrowed as he stared at his holo displays, hands trembling as he locked the trajectory.

“When was the last time you slept?”

“I don’t know… few days ago…” When Jeff breathed, his inhalations shook, his eyes becoming glassy, “EDI used to correct my exit trajectories. I forgot she wasn’t here. I was doing real well remembering how to do everything alone. It won’t happen again.”

Kaidan waved his hands over Joker’s display and the interface disappeared, he sat down against the bulkhead in front of Jeff’s chair and eyed the pilot.

“I was in here the other night,” he began, meeting Jeff’s gaze, “during the party. It was the only place I could go to be alone.” He laughed, Joker stared down at him, eyebrows knit together. “Remember when we used to joke about how no one ever comes onto the bridge, huh? Until Shepard came aboard.”

“Yeah,” Joker said warily. “I just think he saw Nihlus do it and wanted to play Spectre. He… uh, always visited me though. After every mission, first thing on his post-mission checklist.”

“That’s right,” Kaidan smiled, shook his head. “Anyhow, people had been giving me their condolences all day. It annoyed me. Still does. I buried myself in my duties, figures. There’s… a million things to do right now, y’know? Easy to get lost in the work… Anyhow, I sat right here, downloaded everything on the battle over Earth, and I watched it. I watched Shepard say goodbye to me for the last time, watched him board the Citadel. Watched the Citadel explode, with the man I love inside.”

“At least you got to say goodbye.”

“At least I got to say goodbye. This time.”

“I guess not everyone’s as lucky as you.” Jeff called the holo-interface up again, but Kaidan waved it away.

“No they aren’t.” Kaidan stared.

“Look, Kaidan, I know you’re trying to make me open up, cuz that’s what you _do_ or whatever, but like you said: it gets annoying.”

“Have you looked through EDI’s things?”

“…what… things… she didn’t have a… a… trunk or something with all of her knick-knacks inside… she” He put a hand over his eyes, forehead glittering with sweat under the brim of his hat.

“Her files. I know she had some.”

“Probably all got erased with her.”

“Have you looked?”

“…No.”

“Mm. You should. It hurt like hell to watch Shepard… die… but it was good to hear his voice again.”

“Did Shepard leave you… any files…?” His voice was small.

Kaidan sighed.

“I don’t think so. You know how bad Shepard is with sending messages. His… dog tags list me as his next of kin. So if they find his… body… if there’s anything left to find” Kaidan cleared his throat, “The Alliance should contact me if we get in range of a working comms buoy.”

“Oh…” The two men sat in silence for a moment, the lavender glow off the surface of the gas giant illuminating the cabin. A steady hum from the bowels of the ship indicated that they had begun taking on fuel, “When the Collectors blew up the SR-1, and we were all floating in escape pods waiting for the Alliance to fish us up… you did a hell of a job getting us all working together and keeping morale up while we waited. Past couple days remind me of that.”

“Thanks.”

“When I signaled you after I got in an escape pod and told you that Shepard didn’t make it, d’you remember what you said?”

“Honestly? Nah.”

“’We’ll see about that’.”

Kaidan chuckled, “Did I really? The adrenaline was pretty high. I could’ve said anything.”

“Yeah,” Joker smiled, “When Tali told me that EDI wasn’t going to boot back up, I told her ‘We’ll see about that’.”

“Huh.”

“When did you really start to believe he wasn’t coming back?” Joker asked in a hollow tone, the hue from the windows turning the dark circles under his eyes into a deep black.

“I don’t even think I could pinpoint the moment, anymore. Looking back, it feels like I made up my mind he was never coming back about 2 minutes before he did come back.” Kaidan smiled weakly, but Joker was brushing the back of his hand over his eyes.

“My whole family’s dead,” he croaked, “I feel worse about losing EDI. That feels wrong. Thinking about some robot who was using me as her human-relationship-experiment more than I think about my sister. What the hell is that, am I right?”

“Do you really believe that about EDI?”

“Yeah, sure, I dunno,” he growled. “Whatever it was I fell for it hard.”

“I don’t think you believe that you were just an experiment to her,” Kaidan said softly, “For a long time after Shepard died I tried telling myself that I missed him because he was my commander, a hero even. I realized I loved him later. It hurt a lot more, but the truth… started the healing process.”

“She was…” he shook his head, tears streaming down his face, “She really had a _soul_ , y’know?”

“I know.”

They sat in silence again.

“People don’t have the easiest time getting to know me, and I don’t give two shits about most people. To EDI, I was just another human. She was literally the ship and she knew _everything_ , and she thought I was special.” Jeff slumped back in his chair, “I sound like a freakin’ school girl. Dammit. I didn’t ‘hang out’ at the academy, everyone thought I was gonna fail-out because of my handicap so I was working all the time to put those sons of bitches in their places. I don’t know what I expected though, it’s not like EDI and I were going to have anything like a normal life…”

“Why not?”

“Well, you probably felt like that too, huh?”

“Wait, felt like what?”

“C’mon, you and Shepard… you’ve got your chronic migraine shit, Shepard’s more machine than man, both of you war heroes… no way you’re gonna beat that into quiet little living somewhere.” Said Jeff. Kaidan stiffened, “Same with me staggering around with my chrome arm candy.”

“I… umm… I guess I never quite thought of it… in those terms.”

“…aww shit.” He pounded a fist on the console, “That was a real asshole thing to say, Major. I’m uh… I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay Jeff. We’re all soldiers and we knew the risks going in. We knew there were certain roads we might never be able to go down.”

“Yeah we did,” Jeff’s wet eyes reflected the planet-shine now, “I guess when I joined up, I didn’t think anything else good was going to happen for me. I can’t believe this is the end.”

“So don’t believe it.” Kaidan said quietly. Jeff lifted his gaze straight up, slowly shaking his head, lip quivering, “There’s never been anything like EDI. She’s worth believing in.”

“It hurts,” Jeff choked, “She said she would come back to Tiptree with me to bury my family… I wasn’t supposed to have to do that alone. I don’t know what to do.”

“You believe in her. You fight for her. You do better for her. We all owe her that.”

“I guess I do.” They sat in silence for a long time, until the fuel converters decks below gradually hummed lower and lower before stopping altogether.

Kaidan sighed deeply.

“Jeff, I’ve been where you are right now. And I know that you’re going to hate me for this, but you need to take time to figure this out. I’m putting you on leave as of right now until further notice. I don’t want you up on the bridge for a while, okay?”

“…what?” Jeff’s eyes narrowed, “You’re suspending me?”

“I’d rather you just took the leave.”

“No. This is… this is crazy! I can’t even believe I need to argue this! Why would you suspend me _now_?”

“You’re exhausted. And I want you to work through this grief a little bit. The Alliance doesn’t give the help it needs to people sometimes, and people break on the job. This is my command now, and I don’t want that happening to anyone on my crew. Gets some rest. Take some time. You’ve been through more than most. You need this, Jeff.”

“The hell I do! Who the fuck else is gonna fly this thing?” Joker spat, “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but our crew is half interior decorators who couldn’t tell the throttle from their asshole and half trigger-happy jarheads who only ever stopped onto the bridge to check out EDI’s tits!”

“I’m going to fly the ship.”

“ _What?”_

“I am going to fly the ship while you rest.” Kaidan said, “I was your copilot for a long time on the SR-1, flew it solo on the night shift plenty of times. I can handle it.”

“It’s double the mass! And _night shift_ is no place to—“

“I’ll manage. You haven’t slept in days, Jeff. It’s affecting your performance. It’s putting the safety of the crew at risk.”

“… _what?”_

“It’s been exhausted flying, and it’s dangerous. You know it. I know it.”

“So all this… all this talk-about-our-feelings- _bullshit_ was just to butter me up so you could kick me when I’m down!”

“Jeff—“

“And what’s this ‘Jeff’ bullshit?” he roared, “Not everyone thinks like you do, Kaidan! Think you can just skip the nickname I’ve been hauling around since flight-school  and you’ll, what? ‘Speak to my soul’ or some shit?”

“No,” he said quietly, “I’m worried about you. You’re going through hard times. I don’t know if it’s the grief or the lack of sleep, but I’m thinking of the crew too. You know better than anyone the types of mistakes a sleep-deprived pilot can make.”

“I’ll get a good night’s sleep, alright? We’ll just… I just need to get some sedatives…” Joker’s hands clenched the fabric of his uniform pants.

“This isn’t up for debate, Joker. I’m sorry. I’m not gonna say you’ll thank me for this some day, but I’m doing what I think is best for you, too.”

Jeff’s eyes had become glassy and his voice quivered as he spoke, “Kaidan,” barely above a whisper, “please don’t do this. When I’m flying… It makes me feel close to her. If I’m not staying busy, I’m gonna go crazy. She’s all I can think about whenever I’m not doing something else.”

Kaidan’s mouth hardened, but his gaze still wavered.

“Believe me, I know. _I know_ , really I do. But you need to learn to live with this right now. And we just don’t have time to wait for you to catch up on sleep.”

“Every time I close my eyes… all those people… please, Kaidan… please let me do my job,” Jeff begged.

“I’m so sorry she’s not with you right now. I’m sorry about Tiptree. You can’t run away from this, Jeff.”

“I’m not running!” Jeff shouted, “I’m _not_ running. I just need to be useful…”

“Joker,” Kaidan stared, “Enough. It’s enough. You’ve saved my life so many times I can’t count, and you’ve saved this ship and her crew over and over again. You’ve been a hero and now you need to just be… a goddamn _human_.”

Jeff’s expression had become cold.

“…I think you’re too fucked up about Shepard to fly this ship either.”

“I want you to deal with your grief. That’s not why I’m sending you to bed, though. You’re not fit to fly this ship because you’re exhausted.”

“Then I think you’re too exhausted to fly this ship, too!”

“Doesn’t matter, I’m in command.”

“Then I’ll talk to Chakwas!”

“Once you get a couple nights regular sleep, we’ll talk again. I want you flying this ship, Joker. I mean it. But I know exhaustion, I know grief, and I know you. I’m not budging on this.”

Jeff blinked hard another moment, then slid out of the chair. He hobbled to the hatch, and paused as Kaidan stood up and sat in the pilot’s chair.

“Shepard would’ve told me to fight through this.”

“That’s the difference between Shepard and me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story is 60% Posted! Thank you so much to everyone who's been following this from the start, you're the best people ever and getting your comments still makes me feel like I'm living in some sort of incredible fantasy with all these great folks.
> 
> Next Chapter:  
> Kaidan's own exhaustion begins to catch up with him.


	41. The Difference between the Night Side and the Day Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan ends another day as Normandy's pilot, has a heart-to-heart with Garrus, and relives some painful memories.

Seventeen hours in interstellar space.

Without any kind of onboard AI, constant course corrections were needed. Joker could’ve done the corrections at FTL speeds, but it took Kaidan three days to gather the courage to even attempt it. Hopping in and out of FTL made it seem like the journey would take forever. Each star system was an oasis for fuel and static discharge—pin prick zones of safety amid the cold nothing that separated them.

The Normandy was the fastest ship in the galaxy, on a galactic scale it wasn’t that far from Earth, either. But if they overshot any of their calculations—all made without VI assistance—they would burn from static overcharge, or lose power and drift off into the void.

And now Kaidan had just spent seventeen hours flying in interstellar space. It wasn’t even the longest crossing they had over the next few weeks. Even so, Kaidan’s eyes were drooping as he navigated the Normandy into an equatorial orbit with a Helium-3 rich gas giant. The ship was positioned with its nose perpendicular to the surface, the red glow of it fully illuminating the bridge.

“Nice job, Normandy,” Kaidan murmured into the stillness, slipping back into his chair to watch the planet spin. “We’ll get there.”

At first he had tried music, but the energetic songs made him grit his teeth and the mellow songs made his eyes fog-over. Then he had tried listening to audio-books, but a few chapters in he canceled the transmission.

“It’s not the same, is it?” Kaidan had said, maybe to himself, maybe to the ship. “Just doesn’t feel the same as… reading it. You can’t take your time, you can’t think about what you read, you can’t re-read lines… I can’t imagine listening to a whole book that way.” He had frowned, then, “You know who likes that though?”

The ship hadn’t answer.

“Shepard…”

Now, as the ship orbited low, Kaidan had run out of things to say to the silence.

“We just need to keep… holding on.”

Against the low hum of the fuel collectors coming online, the noise of the bridge hatch opening didn’t even attract Kaidan’s gaze.

“Major Alenko,” Garrus spoke softly, sitting in the copilot’s seat, “Just when I thought you were moving up in the world, they’ve got you piloting the ship like a common lieutenant.”

“Talked with Joker, huh?” Kaidan’s voice was weary.

“I tried last night. Mostly he lays on his bunk and doesn’t talk to much of anybody.”

“Oh.”

Garrus removed one glove and haphazardly inspected a talon.

“…something… _happen_ with you two?”

“Dammit Garrus, you know damn well I suspended him from duty,” Kaidan snapped.

“You don’t need to explain it to me. It was the right call. Joker’s the best, but even the best pilot’ll land you in a star or something if he’s exhausted.”

“I didn’t mean to snap.” Kaidan sighed, “I just… had a hard time getting Joker out of the chair.”

There was a rumble in the He-3 collectors and both men looked down at the deck plating. When they smoothed out, both Garrus and Kaidan sat back and watched the hot Jupiter twist rainbows around its axis in silence. Kaidan’s head fell back on the chair.

“Sorry, Kaidan. I’m a little out of my depth here,” Garrus finally groaned. “How about giving me a break and just _telling_ me how you’re doing?”

“I’m tired. They’ll be fueling and refining for at least the next 10 hours, so I can finally get some sleep.”

“Yeah. Tired. Uh huh.” Garrus leaned back, hiking one leg onto the console, “I’ve been avoiding you on purpose, Kaidan. There, I said it.”

Kaidan looked over, cracked a smile.

“What?”

“I keep going over those last minutes on Earth, before the two of us got our asses handed to us by Harbinger. I’ve been wondering if we could’ve done something different.”

“…what did you come up with?”

“Nothing.” Garrus shook his head. “And that’s why I haven’t really wanted to talk to you. These people, they loved Shepard. But they weren’t with him at the end, like we were.”

He turned to Kaidan, switching off his optical interface so it didn’t glow in the darkness.

“I wasn’t with him at the end,” Kaidan muttered.

“Hmm?”

“I said ‘I _wasn’t_ with him at the end.’”

“…I know.” Garrus absent-mindedly stroked his brow, “I don’t know how to have this conversation, and you’re not exactly making it easy on me.”

“Garrus, listen,” Kaidan leaned forward, elbows on knees as he smoothed his hands down his face, “I’ll tell you what I’ve been telling everyone: I am… hurting. I’m worried about Shepard. Yes, I believe he’s alive. Yes, I want to get back and search for him. But I have a duty, and no matter how many times someone brings it up, I do not need condolences right now. I’m really grateful, but I’m gonna process it in my own way. And I’m not even gonna try to think about it till I know whether or not Shepard’s still alive.”

“No one else was there to see the look in Shepard’s eye when he said goodbye to you in front of that beacon...” Garrus said softly.

“He didn’t say goodbye.”

“We’ve both seen that look, Kaidan. He said goodbye.” The two men sat in silence, the groan of the He-3 collectors accompanying the change in hue of the room as the Normandy’s orbit slid into the planet’s night side. A black crescent crawled across the surface of the gas giant, the swirling patterns of rising thermal bands twisted more feverishly ahead of the inexorable wave of darkness.

“Okay. Maybe.” Kaidan swallowed, “I don’t need to talk about it.”

“Maybe I do?”

Kaidan scoffed, “Why’s that?”

“I’ve never had a friend or a commander like Shepard. I have pretty high standards and, let’s be honest, most humans don’t measure up. Most turians, either.” He shook his head, “I always thought we’d go down together, ‘No Shepard without Vakarian.’” He chuckled to himself.

“That’s pretty good,” Kaidan said, mirthless.

“Shepard said it, not me. Only Shepard could be so corny,” Garrus shifted in his seat, crossed his right leg over his left gingerly, the tissue still healing after London. He ran one naked talon against the scarring on his right cheek, “I just need to talk to somebody, I think. I’ve let enough people down in my life, gotten enough people killed on Omega because of my mistakes. It always used to make me angry.  But not anymore. And I suppose I really don’t know what to do with myself. There’s no one to kill to get revenge. No one to hunt down to see justice done or anything.”

“I don’t think Shepard’s dead.”

“Humor me. We don’t all have Kaidan Alenko’s unflappable faith.” Garrus replied coldly.

Kaidan turned.

“…okay.”

“We don’t have any enemies left, and we have pretty few friends left, besides, huh? We’ve got plenty of time to make more friends… more enemies. Right now though… it doesn’t seem right somehow, does it? Shepard being gone… and no one to blame. ‘That’s just war.’ Leaves a void. Feels almost disrespectful to try to fill it.”

“Uh huh.” Kaidan’s voice caught in the back of his throat. The system’s sun was setting over the crimson rim of the nameless planet. The last rays of golden light illuminated the cabin.

“For a long time, it was just the three of us, huh? Noveria and Ilos, and just about every rock between with any hint of a mineral or mercenary hide-out. I was a different person back then, thought a lot about justice.” Garrus sniffed derisively, “I thought I knew what the galaxy needed. Shepard showed me something different. When he died, I hid on Omega, the law be damned. I thought that’s what I needed. Shepard came back, and he showed me something different. Again. Turns out what the galaxy needed was just… me. Us. Bunch of nobodies we were. Doing what we knew was right. That’s how Shepard… that’s how _we_ … saved the galaxy.”

As the sun set, there was a brilliant arc of light between the pitch-dark of the planet’s night-side and the glimmer of deep space. Then there was nothing. The two friends drank-in the darkness of the cabin, the dull glow of the haptic interfaces catching deep in Garrus’ eyes.

“I know that sounds corny. But it’s been the three of us from the beginning. You don’t go through as many battles together as you and me and not have a pretty strong connection, Kaidan. It was the three of us there at the end. No one else saw the way Shepard looked at you, or heard the way he told you he loved you. It tears me up knowing what you two meant to each other and wondering if… if that’s really the end. You’re my friend, Kaidan. I want justice for you. I want revenge for you. There isn’t any of either, though. All I can give you is my time.”

In the darkness, tears streaked down Kaidan’s face, his body too weary to even brush them out of his eyes.

“…there’s this feeling I have, Garrus. Like… like I _know_ he’s dead. I believe in Shepard with… with everything I’ve got. I believe he’s alive. But it’s so… hard to.” His voice caught in his throat, “That explosion…”

“Yeah, I watched the log,” Garrus said.

Kaidan shook his head.

“I was ready for the end of the world. I was ready for a Banshee to skewer me through the chest the second we stepped off that shuttle. I was ready to watch Shepard… ready to watch Shepard… to watch…” he bit down a strangled sob, “Ready to watch Shepard get pummeled into… into _hamburger_ by a Brute. What I was _not_ ready for… was watching him run away from me. Leaving me behind. Knowing he was alone up there. But when he sent me away… I knew it was the right call. For the mission. For the goddamn mission. I surprised myself, that I could see through everything I was feeling, that I could go against every instinct I have to protect Shepard… save him from… from his own fucking _hero complex_ ,” he raged, voice shaking. “The mission won out. The galaxy needed Shepard. Not me. Not _us._ ”

“Trying to save him from his hero complex…” Garrus chuckled a little, “What are the Reapers compared to that fight?”

“Commander Shepard,” Kaidan continued, ignoring the interjection, “Saves the galaxy, gets his boyfriend to safety in the nick of time. Looks very noble, I’m sure.” He turned to Garrus, a tremor in his jaw barely visible in the orange glow, “If he’s dead… I wish he would’ve just let me… if he really loved me…”

“Oh.”

“Ben… dammit. I really love that man, Garrus. And now… after everything I told him about not wasting time, about being sure about _us_. I look back and all I see is more wasted time, hours and hours between missions just lying in bed and talking… nothing happening. I should have done more, we should’ve lived more of a life. I meant it when I said I was ready to follow him anywhere. Maybe… Did I not make it clear… how… how much… I _need_ him?”

“…are you really worried about that?”

“I don’t know anymore,” Kaidan leaned back and sighed, “I know I’m being selfish. It was stupid to even talk about this.”

“If it had been Shepard injured on Earth and not you—“

“Yeah, yeah. I know. I would’ve done the same thing.” He mashed the heel of his hand into one eye

“So? Don’t you know how much Shepard needs you?”

“I… I guess I wonder sometimes if Shepard needs anyone.”

“No you don’t.”

“Oh,” Kaidan chuckled ruefully, “You know me so well, do you?”

“It’s just that I don’t think you’re that stupid, Kaidan.”

“Alright. I’m drowning in self-pity again.” He crossed his arms across his chest, as if a draft had slinked into the cabin with the darkness.

“I also don’t know how you and Shepard talk when you’re together, or whatever, but you should hear him gush about you to me. There’s nothing in this universe Shepard cares about the way he does you. And he needs you. More than I think either of us really knows. You’ll see once we get back to Earth.”

“I hope…” Kaidan’s voice was almost a whisper. “Do you think he’s still alive?”

“I… I just don’t know, Kaidan,” Garrus replied quietly.

“…I need to sleep.” Kaidan said suddenly, shuddering breaths settling, “Thanks, Garrus. There’s not really anyone else on the crew I could talk to about… that.”

“Well, among my many talents as a warrior, tactician, and ladies’ man, I’m also a pretty good therapist.”

Kaidan stood up, stretched lightly, then clutched his head with a wince.

“Alright then, I’m going to grab some sleep. Oh… keep an eye on Joker, okay?”

“I will. Keep him busy with poker or drinks or skillian five until he’s ready to sleep a full night instead of just… hurting.”

“I appreciate that. Heading back to the forward canon?”

“No, I think I’ll sit here another hour and watch the sunrise.” Garrus sighed, “You’ve given me a lot to think about. And like I said, we don’t all have Kaidan Alenko’s unflappable faith. That’s why we need you right now.”

Kaidan’s posture straightened and his face reassumed the stony expression he’d been wearing for the past several days. He left without another word. Technicians on the gangway, in the CIC, avoided his gaze, turning to stare after him only after he walked past. He moved like a stone shadow.

While he stood waiting for the elevator, is façade almost slipped, but his shoulders squared and despite the shudders that ran down his spine, he remained the picture of the Commander the crew needed.

Kaidan entered the lift and was whisked up to A deck before anyone in the CIC could stare too long, but when the doors opened onto the dim corridor outside the Loft, Kaidan froze.

The interface on the door still glowed green, as if EDI had just unlocked the door as the lift rose, the way she always had. But Kaidan had been leaving it unlocked since opening it the other night.

The lift doors began to close, and Kaidan stuck his hand out to catch the motion sensor, stepping out onto the deck. The elevator hummed softly as it made its way down the ship.  Kaidan only leaned against the bulkhead. It was the same bulkhead he had leaned against, steeling himself to go and visit Shepard with the bottle of whiskey he’d brought for one last quick drink before the end. The same bulkhead he had pushed Shepard against the first time they had kissed.

He shook his head violently and called the lift back up, heading for the crew deck. His shoulders were slouched by the time he reached the medbay, but there was no one in the mess to notice. The medbay was also empty, Dr. Chakwas having dimmed the lights and gone to bed some time ago. Kaidan stood for only a moment in the dark before heading back to the AI Core.

When the hatch opened, there was Tali, slumped on the deck against the wall, head on her shoulder. Bits of conduit and wire surrounded her, as well as a messy pile of data-pads. EDI’s body was still on its altar, though both arms had been removed and had been opened on the ground. Her face plate had also been removed, the pliable synthetic carefully cut to grant Tali access to the internal workings of EDI’s cerebrum.

The hatch closed with a hiss, and the noise startled a sudden snore out of Tali, she twitched on the deck, muttering in her sleep.

“Tali,” Kaidan said softly, gently touching her shoulder. “Tali, hey. Wake up.”

“Wha-hmm?” Tali’s head lolled to one side and she looked up, the muffled sound of a wide yawn beneath her helmet. “Kaidan. Oh, sorry. I suppose… I fell asleep, didn’t I?”

Kaidan sat on the deck next to her, crossing his legs underneath him.

“You’re working yourself pretty hard, I didn’t expect to find you in here.”

“Oh, I thought you were looking for me,” Tali stretched her arms up over her head, gave a wince. “I’m not as young as I used to be, I’m going to be aching from sleeping on this deck in the morning!”

Kaidan took care not to displace any of Tali’s carefully laid-out hardware as he made himself more comfortable.

“Any luck?” He said quietly, finger hovering over EDI’s face, staring up at him from the deck. Eyes closed, mouth slack but gentle, the face of a silver woman sleeping.

“No, it’s worse than I thought,” her head thumped against the bulkhead. “It’s funny, you know? I’ve been taking apart machines my whole life: I’ve dismantled so many geth with my father. Five years ago, I would have jumped at the chance to research the kind of technology in this mobile platform.” She motioned to EDI’s body, lying piecemeal, “But now. It’s not just a machine. It’s EDI, it feels… wrong, somehow.”

“I know what you mean,” Kaidan gingerly picked up the synthetic face, held it up in front of him. “The first time I saw this face, it was bashing me into the side of a shuttle.”

“ _Keelah,_ I almost forgot about that.”

“Took me just a little bit of time, y’know. Getting used to EDI and all. But yeah. This… this is EDI’s face. And taking her apart… it’s the only way to see if we can help her.”

“Still hard.”

“I can only imagine,” Kaidan answered soberly.

The machines of the AI core clicked in the dimness, many of them repurposed to process the ship’s FTL calculations. Tali wrung her hands for a few moments, and Kaidan’s boots scuffed against the deck.

“I remember the first time I saw _your_ face,” Tali teased weakly, leaning her head on Kaidan’s shoulder. “In that alley, fighting off those thugs?”

“Yeah.” Kaidan lightly placed the hardware back on the deck.

“I thought I was finished, and then _woosh_ , there you were!”

“I guess I don’t remember it too well…”

“Oh _I_ do!” she chuckled. “Shepard comes running right up to me and takes all the shots that are aiming at me! Of course, Shepard. I should have known right then. You were screaming at him to get in cover! I thought _you_ were in charge!”

“Dammit, Shepard,” Kaidan smiled just a bit. “Always… always running right… right up to…”

“He steps in front of me, I go for cover—because _obviously_ —and then _wham!_ And Shepard just throws this salarian and this turian into the wall with his biotics! _Then_ he runs for cover.”

“The start of something beautiful, that’s for sure,” Kaidan swallowed.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about those days, lately,” she sat up and tapped one of the data-pads idly. “Memories… I had hoped that the data stored in EDI’s mobile platform could be used to bring some part of her back…”

“But?”

“It doesn’t work that way, it turns out. Information can be autonomously stored, but she tight-beamed almost everything back to the main AI Core, and it was wiped out in the Crucible wave. What’s left… well, it’s just sensory data. Nothing about the way she felt, her emotions, everything that made her _alive_.”

“Shit,” Kaidan slid further down the bulkhead.

“I have audio-visual files of her last few hours, it’s strange. Like watching a vid,” she picked up a data-pad and handed it to Kaidan. “Before I nodded off, I was watching the three of you fight on Cronos Station… It looks like you guys had a pretty rough time.”

“It was,” Kaidan took the pad.

“And EDI being that AI we fought on Luna. And Shepard…” she stopped suddenly, looked away.

“He was dead,” Kaidan nodded. “Not in a coma or anything, but actually dead.”

“Ceberus,” Tali said acidly, “I don’t know what to think. What a waste. If we ever find the Illusive Man… I just don’t know.”

“It doesn’t change anything,” Kaidan gripped the data-pad hard. “Shepard _was_ Shepard. The Illusive Man is still a monster.”

“Well, now that the Reapers are gone, I suppose we’ll have to take care of him next,” she yawned, leaning back. “Or maybe we’ll be lucky and he was machine enough to get wiped out in the wave.”

“…it would affect him?”

“If he had enough VI synthetic programming, the Crucible wave would wipe out all that code,” she idly adjusted her helmet, then stopped-up short. “Oh, _Keelah,_ I—I mean, I don’t… Kaidan…”

“No,” Kaidan swallowed, “It’s alright. I hadn’t thought about Shepard’s cybernetics.”

“It could be that—“

“No, I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

“…alright.”

Kaidan stared down at the data-pad, there was a vid paused at a late keyframe: the supergiant Anadius, burning coal-red with solar activity, as seen from the Illusive Man’s office aboard Cronos Station. Except for the red giant, it could have been the battle over Earth. Alliance and Cerberus cruisers casting long shadows like dust particles caught in a sunbeam, the yellow bloom of an exploding Cerberus dreadnaught a pin-prick flash of brilliance against the old dying star’s light. It was a moment in time seen through EDI’s eyes.

Kaidan resumed playback.

> _The tiny ships began racing through the background, and the scene shuddered as the assault force breached the lower level of the station. Kaidan stood nearby, jaw set at the scene occurring in space. The sweat was beaded around his forehead, face flush and caked with the stain of the smoke they’d been fighting their way through._
> 
> _All at once, there was a gurgling noise behind them, and EDI whirled around with Kaidan._
> 
> _Kai Leng’s body was slumped against Shepard’s at the main access interface, the hilt of his shattered sword on the floor, Shepard’s omni-tool protruding from his back. Shepard, his face a mask of fury, hissed something in the man’s ear, and tore the blade back out, the blood sizzling on the stabilized energy ribbon._
> 
> _Kai Leng fell to the ground, dead._
> 
> _From there, they revived the Vendetta program, discovered that the Catalyst was the Citadel itself. All the time, Shepard’s expression remained fixed, his brows overshadowing his eyes, lips curling back against his teeth. When he silenced the hologram and turned to leave the room—heedlessly striding through the craters Kai Leng had left in the floor—EDI turned to watch Kaidan chase after him before saving the Vendetta program to take with them._
> 
> _By the time she followed the Spectre out, Shepard had already signaled the surrender of the Cerberus fleet and Kaidan had opened all docking bays to the Alliance landing parties. She watched Kaidan’s face carefully, the way he would look up from his console to watch Shepard._
> 
> _Then it was a silent rush back to the shuttle._
> 
> _“Cortez, back to the Normandy,” Shepard barked when they boarded the Kodiak. As EDI strapped in and the shuttle lifted off, Shepard held on to the straps in the ceiling, rocking with the ship as it ducked between the debris clouding around the station._
> 
> _A moment later, Shepard shuddered and collapsed into a seat, Kaidan following him down._
> 
> _“Dammit, Kaidan!” Shepard snarled, “Right under our noses the whole time!”_
> 
> _“They_ moved _the Citadel?” Kaidan looked across the cabin at EDI, “Is that even possible?”_
> 
> _“In order for the Mass Relays to move something many times their own mass, they must be much more powerful than we imagined.”_
> 
> _Shepard pounded the side of the shuttle._
> 
> _“We were too late, again.”_
> 
> _“The Illusive Man betrayed us, humanity,” Kaidan shook his head. “If we needed any more proof that he’s indoctrinated, we have it now. From what you’ve told me, he never would have done something like this without the Reapers in his head.”_
> 
> _“Son of a bitch.” Shepard’s voice quivered._
> 
> _“From what we have seen of Reaper indoctrination,” EDI supplied, “It is quite possible that the Illusive Man still believes he is helping mankind. The process bends the wills and motivation of the subject to align their personal goals with that of the Reapers.”_
> 
> _Shepard swallowed hard and shook his head, held up his hand. The scene shifted as EDI respectfully looked away, but the audio was still clear._
> 
> _“We’re not going to be too late again,” Shepard said softly. “It never should have gotten this far.”_
> 
> _“You’re gonna make it right, Shepard, I know it.”_
> 
> _“I killed Kai Leng…”_
> 
> _“Yeah,” Kaidan huffed. “I guess we should’ve made sure he was down. Sorry. That press really took it outta me. I should’ve been more careful.”_
> 
> _“I knew he wasn’t down,” Shepard said under his breath. “When I went to that console, turned my back on him… I knew he was still alive. Knew just how to bait the trap.”_
> 
> _“…yeah?”_
> 
> _“His inferiority complex. I’d been watching him since the first time we met, watched the way he fought Thane versus the way he fought me. I let him get his taunts off, I let him call his reinforcements, just to rile him up. Just to take out his shields and hurt him. Then I turned my back. I got his blood boiling so_ he _would come to_ me _. I waited till he came in close. And I ran him through. I wanted to look him in the eyes as he died—whatever’s left of his eyes.” Shepard inhaled deeply, “For Thane.”_
> 
> _“Nothing… would have stopped him… Ben.”_
> 
> _“I know. So I did.” Shepard’s voice quaked, “But I_ wanted _revenge. I’ve never felt that before… it felt like I wasn’t in control. I laid the trap, I knew exactly what I was doing… but I wasn’t in control of…_ why _I was doing it. That scares me.”_
> 
> _“It was a hell of a mission, Shepard. Don’t kill yourself over ending that bastard. The stress. Hell…” Kaidan stuttered for a moment. “He was barely human anymore, he…”_
> 
> _“Yeah. Nothing but Cerberus tech,” Shepard said softly._
> 
> _“Hey now,” Kaidan raised his voice, “That’s not what I meant—“_
> 
> _At this point EDI stood up and walked up to sit in the co-pilot’s chair with Cortez, closing the door to the aft compartment._

Kaidan put the data-pad down and leaned back against the bulkhead.

Of course EDI wasn’t around for the rest of the conversation.

She hadn’t seen the way Kaidan had taken Shepard’s face in his hands.

“I was _dead_ , Kaidan. Dead,” Shepard had said.

“And now you’re alive,” Kaidan had urged. “You’re with me, on the Kodiak, going back to the Normandy. You’re making things _right_ again, Ben.”

Shepard had looked him in the eyes, the muscles in his jaw writhing against the grinding of his teeth.

“It’s hard to ignore.”

“It is,” Kaidan had whispered, leaning his forehead against Shepard’s. “But it’s in the past. It’s done. Seeing that Reaper heart in there… thinking about the fights you had to fight alone, without me. You told me—“

“’You’re here now.’”

“That’s right. And _you_ are here _now_ , Ben. You’re Shepard. You’re my Ben Shepard. Don’t go back to the past, don’t go back where I can’t follow you. Please?” Kaidan’s grip on Ben’s shoulders had pulled him tightly, and he pled.

“Kai Leng,” Shepard’s face had relaxed, the pain in his eyes had become wistful. “’I don’t regret he’s dead.’ I don’t even regret I killed him. But ‘the way a thing goes down matter.’’ He had met Kaidan’s eyes, and Kaidan had leaned in to kiss him, Shepard’s hands seizing him around the waist, fingers pulling at the seam in his armor to pull him close.

EDI hadn’t seen Kaidan insist on Shepard sleeping while the fleet figured out how to dock the Crucible with the Citadel, or the way he insisted Shepard sleep isolated in one of the sleeper pods to _insure_ he slept. Or the way Shepard had said:

“I was getting used to not sleeping alone.”

Or Kaidan leaning in to kiss him, only to stop as a crewman stepped up on the gangway, shutting him in the pod with a “Rest up, Commander,” instead.

Now, Kaidan looked down at EDI’s face on the floor. The eyes through which he’d just been watching his own last hours with Shepard now closed as if in quiet sleep. Dead.

“It’s… a strange way to see the world, huh?” his voice was hoarse when he spoke. There was no reply from Tali next to him, leaning her head once again on his shoulder. “Tali?”

There was a gentle snore and Kaidan smiled. He set the data-pad down and carefully shifted to take her hand, patting it softly.

“Tali? Come on, wake up.”

“Wha?” Tali sat up once again, “Did I fall asleep again? _Keelah,_ I’m sorry.”

“You’re working too hard, get some rest.”

“Between the engines and trying to go over EDI’s VI code, there hasn’t been much time for anything. I haven’t even seen Garrus in… I don’t know. Days.”

Kaidan got to his feet and helped Tali to hers.

“He’s actually up on the bridge right now. You should go see him, then get some sleep, okay?”

“On the bridge? Alone?” she asked. Kaidan nodded. “Maybe he’d rather just be alone then…”

“No,” Kaidan smiled, “I think he’ll be really happy to see you.”

“Hmm. Alright then.” Tali brushed his arm lightly and turned to exit into the dark med-bay.

Kaidan took a few deep breaths before striding off like a fully-armored Spectre on a mission: through the deserted mess and to the lift and up to the Loft.

By the time he lay on the couch in Shepard’s quarters, his teeth were bared against his own anguish, he clutched the cushions till his knuckles turned white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> EDI's legacy.


	42. The Difference between Art and Experience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are settling into the new normal on the Normandy for the crew, even for Joker. Possibly even for Kaidan.

The next few weeks fell into a regular routine: zig-zagging from system to system, dead Relay to dead Relay. Kaidan would wake up on Shepard’s couch as the fuel refinement process was finishing up, brief the crew, and then head to the bridge. He’d fly all day or all night or both, and the crew would leave him alone. Then he’d make rounds like Shepard used to, talk to most everyone on the ship and share some rationed hot tea with the night shift and laugh before heading to the loft.

The technicians got better and better at nailing their deceleration calculations, and Kaidan’s reflexes had gotten better at dropping out of FTL just outside the termination shock of the destination system, coasting into the nearest gas-giant’s magnetic field just as static build-up got into the red.

Traynor had been working on the signals passing through the Relay buoys, and if nothing else, once they had visited enough dead relays, she might be able to calculate if there were any nearby that were still working—and where they might be.

“Always nice to have something to break up the monotony, eh?” Kaidan said to the rumbling ship.

The ship did not respond.

“Early stop won’t set us back too much, don’t worry,” He began adjusting the Normandy’s position to enter a high orbit around a freezing gas giant. He’d picked it up on scanners not long ago: a massive planet of mostly gas and ice, far out in its system’s Oort cloud. Hurled from its true orbit and on its way out into deep space, to be lost forever.

Out the cockpit, it was completely dark, and Kaidan squinted at it.

“What d’you think? Purple? Maybe a deep blue?”

The ship did not respond.

“There is _no_ light out here, is there?” he gave a throaty chuckle. The planet itself was a huge black mass blocking out the background of stars behind it, its sun no larger than a credit chit at 30 degrees off the port. Like a cold, dead rock in the darkest crevice of the sea. “Not every day you stumble on a rogue planet, is it? Remember when we used to jump from planet to planet, finding all kinds of… old artifacts and minerals?”

The ship shuddered while Kaidan corrected his yaw.

“Yeah. Didn’t feel like there was much of a rush back then,” Kaidan sighed. The dark mass filled the cockpit windows. “Wouldn’t be surprised if we found… some kind of probe in orbit… some old salarian history tablet inside. Now that the Reapers are gone, maybe everyone can get back to that kind of thing.”

The ship sank deeper inside the magneto-sphere of the rogue giant, Kaidan slowing the thrusters as he approached the sweet spot where Normandy’s static charge would begin to leech into the greater mass.

“Always wondered why Shepard wanted to land on every rock from here to the rim,” he whispered to the ship. “Wasn’t the type to look for the best view, back then. Always seemed to find it, though. We had... some good times. Beautiful views...”

The ship began to glow, the static pouring away like liquid fire off the ship’s extremities. Kaidan leveled the orbit.

“…it was a mistake to stop here.” He swallowed, “I should have kept going. We weren’t supposed to stop for another four hours. Guess I was selfish. Got caught up in finding a rogue planet… who cares?” He waved his hand and the haptic interface disappeared. “Wasting time. Starry eyed.”

He rubbed a hand over his eyes. The ship didn’t respond.

There was a whistling outside on the gangway and the bridge hatch slid open.

“Shift change, Major,” Cortez called from the hatch, finishing off the last bite of his ration.

Once the repairs had been completed on the ship, Cortez had begun training to fly the Normandy. He took to it quickly, despite the colossal mass compared to what he was used to flying, and he and Kaidan had taken the flying in shifts to cover ground faster.

“Actually, I think the shift change doesn’t happen till after the refill, Steve.” Kaidan sat up abruptly and pulled his face into a smile. “Take some time for yourself already!”

“Are you kidding?” Steve leaned against the copilot’s chair. “The shuttle bay’s turned into a dance-club during night shift. Spent last night dancing with Traynor down there, slept like a baby. I’m ready to go.” Kaidan eased himself out of the chair and stretched, leaning on a bulkhead, “No disrespect, Kaidan, but these 18 hours shifts are not healthy for you. Why don’t we split the day twelve and twelve?”

“I think I might take you up on that Cortez, but for now I’m getting plenty of rest.” Kaidan peered up out of the cockpit into the depths of the dark rogue planet. “I need to keep you sharp in case we get into an emergency situation I can’t fly us out of.”

“With the state the galaxy’s in right now, I don’t really expect we’ll be running into many hostiles.”

“The days after the war ends are the perfect time for mercenaries,” Kaidan shrugged.

“I guess so. Still. Who’d have the _cajones_ to take on the Normandy?” Steve took the pilot’s chair and increased the sensitivity on all the haptic interfaces, adjusting the seat and rearranging the consoles.

“ _Cajones?_ ” Kaidan chuckled, “You’ve been spending more time with Vega. Sounds like he’s rubbing off on you.”

“That is an affirmative, Skipper. He’s been chummier than usual without being able to get off ship to kill Reapers or beat Batarians at skillian five.”

Kaidan patted Steve on the shoulder.

“I’m off to grab 40 winks. See you in 8 hours.”

“Making the rounds first?” Steve called back. Kaidan stopped at the hatch.

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe. Might just need a little extra sleep tonight, though.”

“Enjoy the extra sleep, then. Oh, and Major? We found something in the cargo bay with your name on it. Small cargo container. You know anything about that?”

“No I don’t. But I’ll take a look. Happy flying.”

“Every time.”

++

“Doctor Chakwas?”

“Kaidan, hello.” Doctor Chakwas stood quickly and placed a hand on Kaidan’s elbow before giving him a gentle hug. Kaidan bit his lip and shuffled for a moment when they parted, “…strange that I haven’t seen you in a few weeks, Major. It’s a small ship. If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were avoiding me.” She smiled wryly.

“Uh… well…” Kaidan rubbed the back of his neck, “I’ve been mostly flying and sleeping.”

“Oh, Kaidan. I know you better than that, there’s no use in lying,” Doctor Chakwas turned back to her desk with a laugh, rolling a chair out for Kaidan. Then she demonstrated exactly how he should make himself comfortable by lounging back in her own chair, leg crossed over leg.

“Sorry Dr. Chakwas. I guess I’ve had a lot on my mind.” He sat, “I wanted to ask how Jeff’s doing.”

“He’s fine. Sleeping normally finally. I told him he’s ready to go back to work when he _feels_ he’s ready. Medically, he’s well rested and fit for duty.” She crossed her arms and stared.

“Ah. Good.” He crossed his arms as well, “Umm… anything else I should know about the crew?”

“Well of the two special patients I usually concern myself with on this ship, I haven’t seen one of them in quite some time.” There was a glimmer in her eye, “He’s my only concern at present.”

“Doctor,” Kaidan smiled a little and shook his head, “Lemme tell you… migraines haven’t been so bad lately.” Chakwas reached across the gap and thwopped him on the arm but they both chuckled.

“Oh stop it!”

“Sorry, Doc. Not really sure what you’re expecting me to say.”

“Well then. Maybe we can just enjoy a nice bottle of brandy?” She had the bottle ready in a drawer beneath the desk.

“I can’t, sorry. I take over the ship again in 8 hours and I need to get some sleep.”

“Consider it a night cap.” She poured two glasses, “Expensive brandy is still, I believe, an even better medicine than laughter,” she raised her glass, “What shall we drink to?”

“Oh I don’t know—“

“To retirement?” Chakwas supplied. Kaidan laughed.

“To retirement.” They sipped together, savoring the warm liquor.

“Yes, first time I’ve ever drunk to that. Never imagined it for myself, frankly. But times change. Imagine: me touring the lecture circuit on Earth! And you and Shepard retired to… well to the Citadel? Or to Earth, do you think?” She asked, setting her glass down. Kaidan’s gaze started up from where it had become lost in the depths of his glass of brandy. He stared at the Doctor for a long moment before speaking.

“Ummm… we hadn’t really… You believe he’s alive?”

“Oh of _course_ he’s alive. He’s not just another human being, is he?” She answered, and Kaidan smiled wide.

“Funny you should mention that. You should read some of the things they write about him in the stor—“ his eyes grew wide. “…on the extranet.”

“I’m sure I would,” she savored another sip of brandy.

“But Shepard, all he wanted—wants—is just to be a normal human being.” He shrugged, “I guess we hadn’t ever much considered retirement either.”

“And what would retirement look like for you? The two of you, I mean.”

“Doc,” he shook his head, stared down into his drink. “I don’t want to talk about this. I’m… just pretty tired.”

“Alright, then.” She set her glass down.

“…When I was a kid and I thought about joining up, I thought I’d have a good career, meet someone, settle down and start a family. Like my dad.” Kaidan swallowed and continued after a moment. “When I _actually_ joined, I didn’t think I would ever retire. Didn’t think about family, anymore. I guess, that’s what retirement looks like for me.”

“Family?”

“Family. Y’know. Whatever that ends up. Just Shepard and me. Or…” He shrugged again. “But, uh, I _really_ … think I’m too… _tired_ to think about this right now.” He cleared his throat with a creaking cough.

“I suspect you’ve been thinking about it already,” Chakwas raised a brow. “We’ve been living life battle to battle, but piloting a ship through quiet stars doesn’t let you put things on the backburner as easily as war does. Just ask Joker.”

Kaidan nodded.

“It was letting him dwell on things.”

“And now it’s letting you dwell on things.”

“I guess he talked to you.”

“He didn’t need to. I’m a doctor, and your friend, Kaidan. And it takes a more callous man than you or Joker _or Shepard_ to think you could sit alone all day doing your duty and not be grieving.” 

“I’ve been alright the past few days,” Kaidan’s lip trembled against his glass. “Settled into the new normal.”

“Good.” Chakwas finished her drink. “Once we get back to Earth, you’ll be all set to settle into the _new_ normal with Shepard and retirement.” She laughed suddenly, “A family. You and Shepard. What a lucky home that will be.”

Kaidan smiled, nodded his head, a blush in his ears.

The two chatted a bit about the habits of the crew now that they’d been in deep space with no communication for weeks. Each had another glass of brandy as an excuse to prolong the conversation. At last, Kaidan stood to leave.

“But honestly, Kaidan, how _are_ the migraines?”

“Oh, a few here and there. It’s funny, I had gotten used to that static buzz in the back of my head. But now that it’s back, it’s driving me crazy.”

“The static feedback from your implant? It went away?”

“Shepard—“

“Oh _yes!_ Ha! His synchronization technique! It actually worked, did it?”

“Yeah! Gets rid of the buzz. It’s been building since… since he’s been gone.”

“Ah. I see. All the more reason to hurry back, hm?”

Kaidan smiled, a soft look in his eyes to contrast the pique of humor in Chakwas’ own gaze. He laid a hand on her shoulder and when she smiled, he laughed just a little.

++

The door to the Port Observation Lounge slid open silently, and Kaidan turned his head when he heard Joker’s guffaw from the bar. There was a blanket crumpled on the floor next to one of the couches, and data-pads full of FTL calculations and ship diagnostics strewn on every surface. Joker sat at the bar, his back to the hatch, watching an old Earth comedy vid on a data-pad. As Kaidan stepped behind the bar, Joker caught his eye and gulped down another laugh.

“Ah. Hey, Major,” he paused the vid playback and ran a finger under his nose, “I, uh, was just taking a break from some FTL calculations. I’ll have ‘em ready by the time we’re done fueling.”

“Why are you doing jump calculations anyway? You’re supposed to be taking it easy.” Kaidan leaned onto the bar and yawned into his wrist, blinking heavily.

“I thought I was on suspension.” Jeff folded his hands, “Besides, I’ve been feeling like a waste of space, and the brain trust in the CIC is pretty good at calculations, but they don’t really understand how the ship flies, they always undershoot. I’ve been making corrections over their shoulders.”

“I’m glad you found something to do. How’re you sleeping?” Kaidan didn’t meet Jeff’s eyes, and Jeff kept his gaze firmly fixed on the bar-top.

“Uh… I lay in bed for eight hours. Sleep about five of those. So pretty good, I guess.”

“Great. That’s really good, Joker.”

“Uh huh…” he took a sip from the tumbler next to his data-pad, “Garrus has been playing a lot of skillian five with me and, uh, Cortez and I had a mushy kinda heart-to-heart talk too.”

“Steve knows his stuff.”

“He told me you helped him figure out some of that stuff.”

“Yeah, well, I think Shepard had a big hand in that.”

“He mighta mentioned that, too.”

They stared down at the bar for another moment as Kaidan suppressed another yawn and rose to his feet.

“I want you back on the bridge, Joker. Shorter shifts for a little while. If you’re feeling up to it.” Kaidan said at last. Joker finally looked up, grinning broadly.

“Hell yes I’m feeling up to it! About fucking time!” he said. Kaidan smiled.

“Alright, you can start by giving me some pointers on pushing the deceleration thrusters when my shift is over tomorrow.” Kaidan twisted his back, easing into a stretch then crossing around the front of the bar, clapping Joker on the shoulder. Jeff swiveled on his bar stool as Kaidan reached the hatch.

“Kaidan,” he called. Kaidan turned, “I took your advice. Found,” he held up the data-pad, “All of EDI’s date ideas. It’s… a shit ton of stuff. Two hundred years of vids. Network games. She probably compiled it all in about 10 minutes while she was bored one day or something. Probably had it all planned out how she was going to introduce me to it for the next 25 years or whatever.”

Kaidan smiled, “That’s great.”

“Uh huh. She also… she left me a letter, you know? A vid message in case anything ever happened to her. I didn’t find it at first… I guess you suggested the idea to her?”

“She had the idea.” Kaidan shrugged, “I was just her sounding board.”

“Yeah, well. That’s really all EDI ever needed from anybody so, maybe just… aw hell.” Jeff sighed, “When we get back, whatever happens. I’m not gonna let you down, Kaidan.” Jeff’s expression had hardened, and Kaidan nodded.

“Rest up. We’re scheduled to get to a relay in a few days. I want you to be the one flying us into Sol.”

“Aye, aye Skipper. It’ll be good to be flying again. Umm… you doing okay?” Jeff raised an eyebrow. Kaidan’s shoulder’s slumped a little, but he nodded his head.

“Thanks, Jeff. But I’m alright. I’ve been up and down, and it’s hard to stay positive when I’m tired. But it’s been a good couple days. I enjoy the time in the pilot’s chair.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean. EDI gone… I haven’t been on the bridge in a few days, it’s crazy how fast you get used to the way things are now, huh?”

Kaidan’s eyes clouded over, his jaw trembling for a moment. He nodded slowly and left the lounge without another word.

++

Kaidan had almost reached A-deck before muttering about his cargo in the shuttle bay and taking the lift to the bottom of the ship.

It was a small cargo container, possibly one of the old medigel crates. There was a thick purple ribbon around it, tied in a sophisticated bow. Sitting on the couch in the captain’s cabin, he fumbled with it for a few moments, trying to slip off the ribbon without untying the bow.

He pulled the container apart, and pulled out a metal disk, just larger than a salad plate, and also a data-pad. He inspected the disk, pressing against the shining reflective surface to locate any kind of switch, but set it down on the table to activate the data-pad. The moment his hand was removed, the disc glowed for a moment.

Suddenly, a hologram shot out up like a pillar of light from table-top to ceiling: swirls of deep colors entwining shards of light, spheroids that seemed to catch and refract the hues all over the room. Kaidan ran a hand across the display, and the whole presentation rippled like liquid before coalescing and beginning to softly spin, the subtle motion making the colors writhe around each other, shapes geometric and wild melting into one another. The data-pad had a single audio log saved to memory:

 _“Kaidan,_ ” it was EDI’s voice, and Kaidan smiled, burying his face in his hands, “ _Please forgive the lateness of this present. As I record this, the rest of the crew have finally fallen asleep after Shepard’s party. While on shore leave, I have attempted to express my appreciation for my friends and crewmates by purchasing them ‘gifts’ tailored to their interests and our interactions._

_After conversing with Shepard about your interests, it seemed unlikely that you would derive much pleasure from anything commercially available. What is more, I wished to express my gratitude to you for helping me explore the circumstances of my own relationship with Jeff. My gift to you, then, is the first fruits of my efforts in holo-sculpting.”_

The holo-sculpture continued to spin gently, now subtly rippling in the air currents as the heating vents turned on.

_“You understand now, why I have waited till this occasion to give it to you. Since you and Shepard both have been invaluable resources in developing my sense of humanity, it feels appropriate to give you this holo-sculpture as a ‘house-warming present.’”_

Kaidan raised his head, sliding off the couch and sinking onto the floor beneath the pillar of light.

_“Since Shepard has stated he is uncertain where the two of you will be living once the war is over, I have attempted to design the physical component in a simple style which you will appreciate. While the aesthetic of the emitter has been designed to complement Shepard’s apartment on the Citadel, I believe my ‘artistic style’ will match most any décor in your new home.”_

Kaidan had tangled his fingers in his own hair on the floor, body ragdoll limp.

_“The idea first occurred to me by way of a joke I shared with Shepard: ‘It’s the thought that counts.’ Unlike an organic, I am able to isolate precise quantum processes in my hardware which can be rendered to display the exact visual nature of a ‘thought.’ By experimenting with different ways to translate the state of various nitrogen vacancy centers, electron orbital degeneracies, and Rabi interactions using aesthetically pleasing visualizations, I am able to create a holo-sculpture that perfectly and beautifully images a single thought—or, in this case, an emotion. In the truest artistic sense, each of my sculptures is a ‘piece’ of me._

_This particular sculpture represents the distribution of my quantum processors during our conversation concerning loss, which we shared during the search for Leviathan. More specifically, this sculpture represents the moment I realized the full extent of my feelings for Jeff: it is a visual representation of ‘love’, in so far as I have been able to identify the emotion within myself._

_II hope you will find it an appropriate house-warming present for you and Shepard.”_

The recording continued with the technical specs of the device, and Kaidan slumped prone onto the floor, weeping softly into the deck.

++

An hour later when Kaidan returned to the Port Observation Lounge carrying the silver disk, Jeff was fast asleep on the couch, hat brim firmly pulled over his eyes, covered lightly in a blanket. Kaidan stood for a moment, fingers anxiously tracing the circumference of the holo-sculpture emitter.

He dimmed the lights and left once again with his present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Finding a Live Relay


	43. The Difference between Alive and Functional

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Normandy comes upon a working Relay... and several dead Reapers. Everyone wants to get home, but there's work to be done.

“Okay, so: piss myself second day back on the job. Check.” Jeff shouted over his shoulder to Kaidan, walking through the hatch. The Major was smoothing his hair and straightening his disheveled uniform, “Sorry to wake you up, Major.”

“It’s alright, I must’ve slept through my alarm, I wanted to be awake for the Relay—“ he pressed up to the cockpit window next to Garrus, “Damn.”

The Normandy had come out of FTL in range of the next Relay on their zig-zig course back to Earth. There, clustered around the quiescent Relay, were three Reaper capital ships, lifeless in the dim light of the system’s sun. Joker was keeping them at a distance, but the shape was unmistakable.

“Any sign of life?”

“I got nothing.” Joker double-checked his screens.

“It looks like they were trying to escape Sol just before the Crucible wave hit. Must’ve just made it here before they were all killed,” said Garrus, leaning in to peer at the nearest Reaper drifting by.

“Bring us in, let’s take a closer look.”

“Uh, you’re sure you wanna do that?” Jeff spun around in his chair, “I mean, yeah, they look dead but—“

“Is that a Reaper?” Traynor ran onto the bridge, “I—I can’t believe it! They just popped up on scans a second ago, I _swear_ we didn’t know when we came out of FTL…”

“Why _didn’t_ we see them?” Kaidan turned to Traynor.

“They’re completely cold. Almost as cold as the Relay. Garrus spotted ‘em out the window or I would’ve practically flown through that one’s tentacles to get to the Relay.” Joker interjected.

Garrus turned to Kaidan and gave him a wink.

“I guess it’s good _somebody_ up here was paying attention,” he chuckled. “Scans and instruments are no match for—“

“I want a closer look,” Kaidan interrupted. “Let’s pull in.”

“ _What?_ ” Traynor whirled around from the window.

“I’m with Kaidan on this one,” Garrus cleared his throat, looking only slightly embarrassed. “We need to find out if these things are really dead.”

“ _Keelah!_ Is that a Reaper?” Tali dashed up the gangway, shoved Garrus and Kaidan out of the way to get to the window.

“Sure is, and fearless leader here wants to rub noses with it,” Jeff mumbled, swinging the ship around to approach the largest of the corpses. The Normandy aligned itself parallel to the giant spaceship’s ventral axis, the face of the Reaper gliding smoothly beneath them like a huge metal landscape. The sheen of sunlight traced over the Reapers hull ahead of them, like a retreating horizon.

“I never thought I’d ever see one of these so close,” Tali whispered in awe. The cockpit had fallen silent, the Normandy moving on thrusters only.

“Only in my nightmares,” Joker swallowed hard.

“Studying the holo-schematics just doesn’t prepare you…” Tali put a hand against the window.

“In London,” Traynor whispered, “When Harbinger landed… my god. It would be terrifying.”

Garrus and Kaidan said nothing.

“Specialist! _Specialist Traynor!”_ came a shout from the CIC, an analyst pounded up the gangway, “It’s heating up! The Reaper’s heating up!”

“Shit shit shit—“ Joker flicked his hand as a haptic interface encircled his arm, the crew lurching as the reverse thrusters fired hard. The Normandy rolled around its axis so that the Reaper loomed over them.

“No, no! Hold position!” Tali yelled, thrown back into Garrus’ arms, “Kaidan?”

Kaidan nodded firmly and Joker cussed and brought the ship to a halt once again. Traynor had rushed down the gangway, her voice came over the comms a moment later.

“It’s… well it’s, I mean, it’s barely powered up at all… but we are getting some readings.”

“I knew it!” Tali pushed herself out of Garrus’ hold, “It’s responding to the Normandy’s Reaper IFF!”

“If it’s dead how is it responding to the IFF?” Garrus asked, “And wasn’t EDI in control of our IFF?”

“The artificial intelligence in the Reaper is dead, but all the hardware components will still be functional. EDI disabled the Reaper virus in the IFF code, but it’s not an AI component by itself. It’s just programmed to respond to a functional Reaper, probably for salvage purposes. They think we’re a live Reaper!”

“So, what, it’s gonna follow us home?” Jeff rubbed the back of his neck, staring out at the quiescent Reaper. “’Hi Admiral Hackett, look what we found. Can we keep it?’ ‘No. Kill it.’”

“Well, no, but we could probably send it commands if we wanted to,” she mused, “Like I said, everything still works inside, it just won’t allow anything to power up without a governing intelligence.”

“’Oh Normandy,’” Joker continued in his gruff approximation of Hackett’s voice, “’Always picking up strays.’”

“Could we open any external docking hatches?” Kaidan asked quietly.

“No reason we shouldn’t be able to.”

“We’re going to board it.”

“ _What?_ ” Joker and Tali said together.

“This is too good of a chance to pass up. I want a team ready in twenty minutes. Tali, James, Garrus, Javik, and me. Let Cortez know we’ll be needing the Kodiak ready to go.”

“But… I thought we were trying to get home? Earth? Right?” Joker spun around in his chair.

“We need to know if their indoctrination fields are still working. Reaper corpses are about to become the biggest black market commodity in the galaxy, the eezo in one of those ships alone might be able to jumpstart a broken Relay. If they’re still capable of indoctrinating people, we’re going to have a second galactic war on our hands.” Kaidan rubbed his forehead and moved for the hatch.

“Are we… equipped for a survey like this?” Tali asked, gently touching his arm, “Alliance science teams are probably all over the fleet in the Sol System.”

“We’re here, now. We’ve seen more of the Reapers than anyone. And if what you say is true, we’re the only operational Reaper IFF still in the game… we’re a stealth warship with advanced Reaper-inspired weaponry, an overpowered mass effect generator, and the ability to control Reapers.”

“…with Spectre authority,” Garrus stated quietly.

“And that makes us dangerous, and a target. I want to know everything I can about our situation before we get back to Earth. We don’t know what we’re flying into when we get back.” Kaidan made eye contact with each of his friends in turn. Garrus stepped forward and clapped his shoulder.

“We’re with you, Kaidan.”

He nodded and left them on the bridge, exchanging looks among themselves.

“Traynor,” Kaidan called as he came down the gangway to the CIC, “Any signals from the Relay?”

“I’ve been working on those Relay buoys like I mentioned,” she handed a data-pad off to a nearby crew member and called up the schematics of the Reaper they were approaching. The gyros were spinning, and while it looked vaguely singed, the Reaper appeared to be operational. “There’s data coming through the buoy! Not much… less than 1% of what it usually carries, but… it’s more than the ambient alignment signal we were receiving before.”

“So that means…?”

“We… won’t know if the Relay works until we try it… but I might be able to piggy back a signal through?”

“Great.” Kaidan reached over and switched the console to a view of the silent Reaper. “There’ll be time a little later, for now, I want you to see how that ambient signal interacts with the Reaper. Monitor the signals coming off that thing while we’re inside.”

“Um, aye, Major.” She bit her lip, “What are you looking for?”

“Nothing in particular yet, if we can figure out how these things communicate with each other, it might help us down the line.”

Without another word, he made for the elevator, already unbuttoning his collar.

++

It was going to take longer than 20 minutes to disembark.

As Kaidan took the lift down to the shuttle bay, the doors opened first on the engineering level. Diana Allers looked at Kaidan with surprise for a moment.

“Major, just the man I was looking for.” She grinned, but the waver in her voice betrayed the crack in her patented control. Allers had been the one person on the ship Kaidan had not visited since starting the journey home, indeed they hadn’t spoken since Kaidan’s interview with her while the Normandy orbited Rannoch.

She was dressed comfortably, soft-pants instead of her usual dress, a yellow blouse with an old and faded orange sweatshirt jacket half-zipped. The elastic on the cuffs and hem had long lost its stretch, and the draw-cord was missing from the hood. He long, dark hair was loosely braided and thrown over her shoulder. She was shorter in sneakers.

“Getting in, Ms. Allers?”

“Yes. Going your way, I hope,” she cleared her throat and stepped into the lift.

“I’m afraid I’m going aboard the Reaper,” he answered curtly. “I don’t have time to talk right now.”

“Major,” she took his arm when the lift doors slid closed. “I want to come aboard the Reaper with the boarding party.” She held up a hand when Kaidan opened his mouth, “I _already_ found a hardsuit that fits, Sergeant Millon helped me get it all sized up. I’ve got no equipment but a small camera drone, I won’t go anywhere without your say-so, and we go when you say we go.”

“No.”

“What if I promise I’ll never interview you again?” she tried with a sheepish smile.

“You already aren’t going to interview me.”

The door to the shuttle bay opened, and Diana stepped on the threshold to block Kaidan’s path.

“Give me a second to explain, please?”

Kaidan gave her a wary look and motioned her back onto the lift, the door slid shut and Kaidan activated the emergency stop.

“We’re going to see if the indoctrination fields are still active over there,” he rubbed a thumb over his temple, and Diana’s gaze fluttered between watching his eyes and the thumb massaging his head. “I’m not going to take any chances on this one. A couple guns, a couple techs.”

“From what I understand,” her posture was stiffening, revealing the journalist under the sweatshirt. “Indoctrination fields take weeks to work, a brief exposure wouldn’t pose any risk—otherwise the whole crew of the Normandy would qualify for quarantine and evaluation.”

“Cerberus’ process was nearly instantaneous.”

Her eyes narrowed, harboring a glint in the depths.

“…you saw that on Cronos station?”

“No headlines from this conversation, Diana.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she shook her head. “Sorry. Habit. Anyway, I understand wanting to be cautious, but it’s the first look inside a Reaper anyone’s ever had—well, anyone who isn’t a dead turian Spectre or… Commander Shepard.”

“It’s still a military operation. There’s going to be plenty of dead Reaper’s lying around. All we’re doing today is making sure they’re safe for cameras later.” He clearly attempted a smile, but it was half-hearted at best.

“Crew of the Normandy? Exploring a Reaper?” she exclaimed, “First look inside a Reaper is nice, but the _Normandy_ poking around inside one? _That’s_ a story!”

“I really…” Kaidan pinched the bridge of his nose, then drew his body rigid once again, a momentary throb from his temple making him squint. “I can’t afford to think about the story right now, Diana. The war is over, and once we get back to Earth, I know you’re gonna wanna be taking your career somewhere else.”

She drew back with a scowl.

“You think I’m just looking for a scoop?”

“I think you’re a good journalist,” Kaidan responded, dully, “And I think that if you find a good opportunity, you’re gonna take it. But I don’t want to risk a civilian on that Reaper, and I don’t want to risk security by broadcasting whatever we find in that Reaper all over the extranet.”

Her hands came out of her sweatshirt pockets balled into fists.

“The crew of this ship, they’re the only friends I have left! I think I’ve proven my usefulness—I was down underneath engineering scrubbing out burnt conduits, I helped Samantha reprogram the communication array with the rest of the analysts, helped Doctor Chakwas clean the _blood_ off the medbay floor! Because these are my people, and they needed help.

“I’m _shit_ at communication arrays and conduits, but I’m a damn good journalist. And there are stories left to be told on this ship.” She rolled her sleeves up to her elbow, “People need the Normandy more than ever. They need you to get back to Earth. They need to know you’re still taking care of things. To make things _normal_ , I promised Shepard—“ She rolled her eyes, put a hand on her hip.

“Promised Shepard what?”

“I told him that… normal was the best revenge. And… a Bekenstein wake.”

“’Normal is the best revenge,’ huh?” Kaidan smiled, “I bet Shepard loved that.”

“Things on this ship—not troop movements—but little things, Samantha winning a Kepek Yakshi tournament or Corporal Bowman selling his father’s harmonica on the Citadel to fund war effort. Garrus and Tali. You and Shepard… the galaxy’s never going to know about that stuff. Those human moments. But with me here, maybe I can put some of that humanity into this war, and into all this… clean-up. Let me do what I’m good at.”

“…is that true about Lukas?” Kaidan asked softly.

“What?”

“Corporal Bowman. About his harmonica.”

“The night before shore leave ended,” Diana shrugged, “It was an antique. Worth a pretty penny. Donated the proceeds to the War Orphans Relief.”

“Stick close to James when we get over there,” Kaidan said at last, opening the lift doors. “I get final approval on the footage you use.”

Diana grinned.

“Aye, aye.”

++

Tali had figured out how to manipulate the dormant systems within the Reaper, at least enough to open external hatches.

The problem of indoctrination, however, was not so easily solved. Prothean VIs like Vigil and Vendetta had been the only entities in the galaxy demonstrated to actually be able to detect indoctrination and indoctrination fields, and while they still had Vendetta’s code in the Normandy’s computer, it had been wiped out in the Crucible wave.

For the past week, with no Glyph and no galaxy-wide information network to manage, Liara had spent her time with Javik attempting to reconstruct it. Isolating which aspects of its code could detect indoctrination had not been a priority until this moment.

The Vendetta VI had become something of a personal crusade for her: the VI hidden in plain sight in the Temple of Athame on her home planet, ‘hidden’ from her by her mother. Still, in this regard, passion was a poor substitute for experience in teasing out the appropriate code.

“If I don’t know how to detect an indoctrination field,” she had complained, her head in her arms on the desk, “It’s rather difficult to find out which pieces of code control that function!”

Finally, the system was haywire, but the appropriate algorithms had been reapplied, and the boarding party was away.

“I don’t think we’ll have any problems, Joker,” Kaidan called as the Kodiak equalized the pressure, “But first sign of trouble, and you go.”

The comm channel opened as if Joker was going to make another quip, but Jeff’s voice merely acknowledged the command stoically.

The moment they exited the shuttle into the Reaper, Kaidan activated the hobbled VI.

_“Acquiring chronological marker… acquiring…”_ the green orb shimmered in the air, “ _chronological… acquiring_ …”

“Your program is damaged, you won’t be able to get your chronological marker,” Kaidan said gently.

“ _…I am called Vendetta… extinction… terminus…”_

“Listen to me. I need you to perform a scan and tell me if there’s an operational indoctrination field.”

The area they had landed in was nothing like a landing bay: cavernous, but with no obvious design to house any smaller vessels. It was more like a giant, gaping mouth. The light thrown from the shuddering VI program only pierced so far into the darkness. Allers’ camera drone lifted up from its case, swinging a spotlight around and ascending into the bay.

_“… the nature of time is cyclical…”_

“No offense to the Doc, but seems like this VI’s got a couple screws loose, huh?” James said, grip tightening on his rifle.

“Liara says it’ll work. It’ll work.”

_“…the nature of time is cyclical… nature… I am an advanced… construct of… of… the nature of time…”_

“It’s programmed to automatically engage security if it sense an indoctrination field, isn’t it?” Tali offered.

“So… we’re clear then?” Garrus asked around.

Kaidan frowned, “I’d rather hear it from the horse’s mouth.”

_“…the nature of time is cyclical… servants of the pattern… Vendetta… Vendetta… who… I am a virtual construct of… Vendetta…”_

Javik moved closer to the sputtering Prothean VI, his eyes narrowing as the device attempted to reformulate itself into the form of its creator without success. It resolved into broken shards of light, writhing, living static.

“It is broken. Useless. Its purpose has been fulfilled. There is nothing for it now,” He said quietly, barely a hint of arrogant dismissal scratching out through the comms.

“No, we still need it to know if this Reaper’s alive at all.” Kaidan walked forward, attempting to clear out the code that had sent the VI into its loop with his omni-tool.

The camera drone drifted back down, its spotlight shining through the fragmented hologram, momentarily turning it a ghostly pale.

“Speak! Tell us if this Reaper is still capable of controlling sentients!” Javik said to the construct. It grew still.

_“…we are within a Reaper…?”_

The voice sounded almost in pain, struggling through a kind of fog.

“Yes.” Behind his helmet, Kaidan’s eyes softened. The machine intelligence made a sound that might have been an attempt to speak, but came out as something like a moan.

_“…I cannot access information on ‘Reapers’,”_ it said, _“Why can I not access my memory files?”_

“What do you rememeber?” Tali asked gently.

_“…I cannot access my original memories… my creator… I am Vendetta… I was created to destroy…”_

“The Reapers, yes. That is done.” Javik replied, crossing his arms.

“What do you remember about indoctrination?” Kaidan squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them again, his expression had hardened, staring through his omni-tool interface at the VI.

_”Indoctrination… the process by which… Reapers… influence organic minds. The subject believes he is working in his own interest… but… but? Everything he does serves the Reapers… marked by… hallucinations, especially auditory… instincts to aid the Reaper agenda, rationalization of Reaper agenda…”_

It flickered, formed something vaguely humanoid.

“Vendetta,” Kaidan stepped closer, “Focus.”

_“I… am Vendetta?”_

“You are.”

_“Am… I useful?”_ It asked, crumbling back into static _“Is it… is my purpose fulfilled?”_

“Yes,” answered Javik.

“Almost,” Kaidan supplied.

_“The Reapers are gone?”_

“They are.”

_“What is… a Reaper?”_

“Vendetta, indoctrination. Do you sense anything like that in this place?” Kaidan all but stepped into the field of swirling lights.

_“I… do not detect any malevolent presence… no indoctrinated entities… no indoctrination field…”_

“Satisfied?” Garrus turned to Kaidan.

“Yeah.” Kaidan mumbled, staring down at his omni-tool.

_“The nature of time is cyclical… Vendetta… the nature of time is cyclical… servants of the pattern… Vendetta… servants of the pattern…”_

++

The Reaper was not designed to house organic creatures at all, no halls or corridors or elevators. They surveyed only a small section of the thing in two teams for a few hours. The Reaper was utterly silent, airless, and so cold that not even the temperature differential on the hull made enough expansion to rattle through their feet into their ears. Diana Allers had closed her comms channel, recording a monologue for the footage they were taking. True to her word, she kept close to James, and was attentive, even as her mouth moved silently within her helmet, eyes watching the dead and monolithic mechanisms which loomed over them wherever they went.

Javik stalked behind Kaidan, surveying the ancient technology the way a conqueror inspects a field he has burned and salted.

“I would rather there were no corpses left to walk within,” he whispered under his breath when Tali announced she had found the main computer core.

“Don’t worry, it’s completely dead.”

“I’m not worried about that,” he sneered, but half-heartedly. “They are their own gravestones. It is too good for them. Better the Crucible had reduced them to atoms. Unsalvagable.”

Kaidan remained silent.

Tali had discovered that, while the Normandy could control some small functions within the Reaper, to activate larger functions they would need to install code directly into the dead processors. It was unlikely to accept this code initially without the proximity of the Normandy’s stolen IFF.

The teams remained mostly silent on the short flight back to the Normandy, even Diana Allers merely stared down at the deck. Breaths were heavy and hearts still beating fast by the time they boarded the Normandy and removed their hardsuits. Not long after, Tali and Traynor pulled Kaidan aside, all the way into the alcove of the airlock near the bridge.

“It makes me sick to my stomach,” Tali whispered, arms across her chest, “But I think I could… rig that thing up to move with minimal crew input.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You mean someone could fly that?” Traynor hissed.

“Well, yes. It’s responding to the IFF, it thinks we’re trying to repair it.”

“It’s still alive?” Kaidan said to loud, leaned out to look down the gangway.

“No. Bad choice of words. Sorry. It’s dead. But it’s still a _ship_.  All the code is dead, but the circuitry isn’t AI based, and the piece that recognizes a friendly signal it pretty primitive.”

“That makes sense,” Traynor folded her hands at her waist, “If someone manages to take a Reaper down… it means only another Reaper could use any of the components.”

“Another Reaper… or us…” Kaidan supplied darkly.

“We do have the only working Reaper technology in the galaxy these days.” Tali said, “Still… I bet Admiral Xen and the quarian fleet are already rounding up old Reapers to reverse engineer.”

“But for us,” Kaidan swallowed, “It’s easy. Too easy. …do we know how the Reapers communicate? Are they still connected? Is there some way we could send out a code that would… dismantle and destroy the parts?”

“But that technology,” Tali raised her voice, “the things it could do to rebuild the galaxy… you said so yourself—“

“Or the weapons it could build!” 

“Whoa whoa, wait, I’m not saying we destroy anything," Kaidan held his hands up. "Just… we’ve got the ace in whatever play comes next, and I want us to know our options.”

 “I umm,” Samantha answered after a moment, “I’ve been reviewing the signals that were sent around Earth during the battle—cross referencing how the Relay buoys communicate. I suppose I could try? I might be able to relay simple commands? If the transmitter was set up right?”

“See what you can do,” Kaidan nodded solemnly, “Let’s keep this quiet until we know what the situation is once we get back to civilization.”

Tali touched his arm and left down the gangway, but Traynor remained.

“Major,” Samantha caught Kaidan as he was about to duck into the bridge. “There’s something else, about the Relay buoy?”

“Yeah, what’s up?” Kaidan squinted, pressed a thumb into his temple.

“While you were all aboard the Reaper, I got a message through the Relay buoy! Well, actually, Liara helped quite a bit. More her than me, really—“

“Samantha, just… what’d you guys find?”

“Well,” she glanced down the gangway and lowered her voice. “I picked up an asari cruiser passing close to… well, wherever the connecting buoy is. There’s really no knowing. But I attempted to hail them—no response.”

“That’s strange.”

“It is. Particularly since I was broadcasting an emergency frequency. At very least, we should have gotten the auto-response code.”

“And we’re sure they heard us?”

“Positive. There’s no mistaking. Their instruments heard us, they must have _chosen_ not to respond.”

“Hmm.”

“Then… Liara got in touch with one of her people,” she handed him a data-pad with a dour expression. “One of the ships that was doing stealth operations, transporting Justicars into Reaper occupied space. This was the response she got… after hailing them with priority codes. Four times.”

Kaidan activated the message on the pad. The voice on the recording was void of inflection:

> _“Operations continue as planned. Do not attempt further contact. Do not attempt further contact.”_

“Liara tried ordering them to give a mission update,” Traynor hissed. “But they cut all communications after that.”

“Shit,” Kaida handed the pad back, clutched his head in both hands, grimacing against the headache.

“I thought you’d want to know…”

“Thanks, Sam—er, Samantha. I appreciate it. Keep at it, whatever you can. With any luck… the Relay system’s more put together than it seems and we’ll be home today.”

She gave a little wave and headed back to her post. Kaidan took a moment to steel himself against a bulkhead before entering the bridge.

Jeff sat watching some of his comedy vids on the HUD, but quickly closed the display when he felt Kaidan’s hand on the back of his chair.

“Alright Joker, gimme good news about this Relay.”

“Gee I’d love to do that, Comm—Major, but I’m not gonna really know till I give it our mass. Gyros are spinnin’, it looks like it’s receiving our signal, but to be honest I don’t really know how these things work.”

“If this doesn’t work we’ve only got one more Relay in this cluster to hope for.” Kaidan grimaced.

“Well, we make it through, we shave a lot of travel time. If we don’t we’ve just wasted the last couple weeks.”

“…I took a long shot.” Kaidan’s voice was tired.

“Well, our long shots have been turning out pretty well for us these days.” Joker transmitted the mass calculations to the huge structure, turned the Normandy around to bring it up to speed. The huge Relay began to slowly pivot around. “Come on baby, come on…”

“I’m coming Shepard…” Kaidan whispered to himself as they sped for the Relay. “You better be waiting for me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> A hospital in London.


	44. The Difference between Awake and Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Commander Shepard wakes up from a coma in a hospital in London.

There was a quiet buzzing outside the door, the soft scrape of the floor-waxer getting too close to the baseboard in the hall. The hospital room was built for two patients, and every other similarly sized room had at least four. But there was only one bed in this room, one patient, and across from his bed there was a modest desk.

Miranda Lawson had seen to both.

She sat at the desk, poring over a data-pad, the illumination from a single lamp throwing deep shadows over Shepard’s still form. She had placed her hair up in a loose bun, dabbing at the back of her neck once in a while with a handkerchief. The room was body-temperature warm. There were no windows, a basement room out of the way of the traffic, far from the sounds of London being razed and rebuilt and the rubble cleared away. The equipment tethering Benjamin Shepard to life was old, hauled out of storage. But it was the best of the old equipment. Miranda had seen to that too, and the basement room. And the quiet.

The slightest change in the constant rhythm of the monitors caught Miranda’s attention, and she glanced up from the data-pad. She stared for a long time. Shepard’s head lolled to one side. She leaned forward.

His eyes peeled open.

“Shepard… Shepard?” Miranda scrambled back in her chair and hurried to the bed, placed a hand squarely on Shepard’s chest to push him back into the mattress. “Don’t sit up, Shepard.” Shepard winced and went into a coughing fit from the light pressure on his chest. Miranda quickly removed her hand and curled it into Shepard’s. She pressed a comms button next to the bed: “We have a priority situation in SL913. Support staff. Now.”

“Who’s there…?” Shepard’s voice was strained, a dry crackling sound from deep in his throat, struggling with each word.

“It’s me Shepard; it’s Miranda.” She gripped Shepard’s hand tightly, but Shepard barely squeezed back.

“I… I can’t… see…” Shepard began coughing again, a note of fear in his voice beneath the labored breaths, “Why can’t I see… Miranda…?”

“You shouldn’t be able to hear either,” Miranda mumbled to herself, then louder: “I promise, Shepard, I’ll explain everything but you must lie still until we can get someone to take a look at you.”

Shepard coughed again, then smiled through the wheezing gasps, “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

Miranda smiled just a little, her eyebrows raised. Shepard stopped breathing for a moment before his chest suddenly heaved again. She brushed her handkerchief gently across the sweat beading on Shepard’s forehead, then shook her head in frustration, punched the comms, “SL913, priority situation—“

A nurse ran into the room and slumped against the door-frame to regain his breath. Miranda quickly released Shepard’s hand and turned on the nurse.

“What took you so long? Where is Doctor Raj?”

“He… ummm…” the nurse’s eyes drifted down to Shepard’s form, “Holy shit, that’s Commander Shep—“

“Doctor Raj. Where?”

“Oh, ma’am, he’s uhhh… gone for the day ma’am…”

“Gone? We are at a critical stage of treatment and he’s gone?”

“He’s been working double shifts, ma’am, we all have—“

“Nevermind. I need you to check this patient over. Just woken up from a deep coma. No one has briefed you on Commander Shepard’s special needs I take it?”

“N-no ma’am, I didn’t know—“

“Talk and work.”

“—yes ma’am!” he raced over to the monitors and began fumbling with the equipment to do his tests. Miranda stepped out of the room, “C-commander Shepard… can you hear me, sir?”

“I can hear you,” Shepard replied, voice thick, as if suppressing the grating cough.

“Oh my god. Oh my god, you’re really him?”

Another coughing fit, disguised as a wry chuckle.

“Uh huh.”

The young man stared, trying to catch Shepard’s roving, sightless eyes with his own before starting when Miranda’s voice sounded from the other side of the door:

_“Doctor Raj, I was assured the stimulant had no chance of bringing Shepard back to consciousness…”_

“Umm, sir, can you tell me how you feel?” The nurse asked, returning to his diagnostics.

“I feel awf—“ Shepard swallowed hard, as if remembering how, “I… feel… like the morning after shore leave.”

When the nurse laughed, Shepard grip on his sheets loosened just a bit.

“Oh _man_ , you’re… you’re really something else, Commander. Invincible! My dad talks about you all the time, when I tell my family that I got to meet you… they’re gonna flip.”

_“Doctor, need I remind you I am operating under a joint Council and Alliance_ mandate _on this project…”_ Miranda’s voice seeped in from the hall. The nurse swallowed hard and Shepard’s scans started coming up on the monitor.

“Honestly, sir, I thought you went out on the Normandy when the blast happened. I can’t believe…” the nurse’s eyes grew large, mouth hanging open when the scans of Shepard finally registered. “Wha-What is this? You’re—“

“Normandy? Where is she?” Shepard managed to gasp, eyes scrunching tight to suppress the rapid shallow breaths that threatened to choke him again.

_“I cannot accomplish this if I cannot depend completely on the assessment of the medical staff.”_

“T—there’s… alloys… carbon filaments everywhere…”

_“…is considerably painful and I did_ not _want him to suffer through that awake…”_

“The Normandy,” Shepard sputtered again, “where…?”

_“…yes I_ know _it’s unsafe to induce another coma, you understand, then my irritation…_ ”

“I’m not… sure what I’m looking at.”

 “You,” the door swung open and Miranda stepped in, “What is your assessment?”

“W-well ma’am, I’m not sure what I’m really looking at. There’s so many… b-bone grafts and tissue replacements—“

“Are you saying you don’t have the skills to assess this patient?”

“N-no ma’am,” the nurse sputtered. “It’s all stuff… umm, I’ve seen it in medical reports on the extranet at least. This hardware is out of this world, where—“

“ _Are you saying—“_

“Ma’am! Sorry ma’am! The biological components… from what I can tell Mr... uh… _Commander_ Shepard is stable.”

“Good. Is this your usual shift?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“You’re hereby reassigned to this patient. He’ll be a part of your usual rounds and if you hear my priority code you will drop what you are doing and report here at once. You’ll be briefed on the special circumstances of this patient’s care when you return. Mention this encounter to no one. Understood?”

“I…. Yes… yes of _course_ ma’am!” The nurse turned, grinning, to Commander Shepard, only to find Shepard’s blind eyes staring up at the ceiling. He cleared his throat and proceeded on to the secondary rounds of testing.

“You’re dismissed.” Miranda stepped up to the console to review and effectively elbowed the nurse out of the way, he scrambled out the door.

“I think you scared him,” Shepard said mildly, craning his ear to the door until it clicked shut.

“Not the worst reaction I’ve gotten,” Miranda leaned back against the wall, pressed her palm to her forehead and took a controlled breath. “There’s going to be a lot for him to do on top of his usual duty roster. Better for him to know he’s still _working_ when he’s in here.”

“Miranda… where is the Normandy? I… how long?”

“Shhh. Quiet now Shepard,” She took Shepard’s hand again and he tried to squeeze it weakly, she brushed the hair off his forehead and propped a pillow under his head so he could sit a little higher, “I’ll fill you in, just be still and rest, can you do that for me?”

“Uh huh,” Shepard coughed again, “I could use some water.”

“I can’t do that Shepard, I’m so sorry. I’ll explain, but first you’ll want to know about the Normandy.”

Shepard’s sightless eyes rolled around the room toward Miranda’s voice, forehead creased with worry. Miranda looked away and bit her lip, then continued.

“There’s been no contact from the Normandy since the Crucible—“

“And how long is that?”

“…you’ve been in a coma for a very long time, Shepard.” Shepard groaned and Miranda rushed to add: “Though Alliance Command is reasonably confident they escaped the brunt of the blast.”

“Kaidan…” Shepard’s eyes closed, tears forming in the corners.

“What, Shepard?”

“Kaidan…” he cleared his throat, suppressed another cough, “And Garrus. Are they alright? In London I had the Normandy pick them up, they were in bad shape… are they? Are they safe?”

“I—I’m sorry Shepard but we just don’t know. Last signal from the Normandy had Joker at the con, he reported Major Alenko… was in the med bay. There was no word on Garrus,” Shepard’s head fell to the side, and his grip weakened even more, “But there’s no reason to believe they aren’t perfectly fine with the Normandy.”

“In London… before Harbinger… wait, where am I? The Reapers!?” he quaked beneath the thin covering, eyes flying open, “My legs…!”

“Shepard, please!” Miranda placed another hand on his chest, “Stay calm. You’re in London. You… you did it. You…” her eyes turned glassy, “You stopped the Reapers. They’re all dead. Please rest, you’re not supposed to be awake.”

“Dead…”

“The Crucible sent out a pulse; as near as we can tell, it indiscriminately wiped out every piece of VI code in the galaxy by hijacking the Mass Relay system.” She sighed, “And, I’m sorry to say, quite a bit of your body is VI governed after the Lazarus Project rebuilt you. Including the nerve impulses between your brain and your legs. And your eyes.”

“So… if the VI code is all destroyed… I’m paralyzed.” Shepard said, voice devoid of emotion.

“I… don’t think so. Everything can be recoded, but anyone with that skill set is pretty over-worked by Alliance HQ. I’ve been rewriting the code personally… but it’s slow work.” She turned her eyes back to the desk, the piles of data-pads, “There are millions of lines. I only finished with your lungs two days ago. The machine was breathing for you before then. I hadn’t really prioritized the optic implants because… I wasn’t expecting you to wake up so soon. I’m sorry, I can’t work on those till I’m finished reprogramming the neural hardware in your brain that controls nanite regeneration…”

“I understand—“

Shepard’s body shook with a coughing attack, his arms were nearly too weak to bring his hand to cover his mouth. Miranda stepped forward, but hesitated at the edge of the bed. A moment later, Shepard stilled, and Miranda watched him warily through the holographic display as she re-checked his vitals.

“You said ‘no one is supposed to know about me being here,’” Shepard’s voice scratched out. “Why is that?”

“The fewer people know we’ve got the bloody savior in this hospital the better.” She tightened the cord around her hair. “You can’t recover if you’ve got the media pawing all over you.”

“Is that literally or figurative?”

“…what?”

“’Bloody’ savior. Am I literally bloody?” Shepard managed a half smile beneath his heavy-lidded eyes.

“No… no you _idiot._ ” Miranda smirked, “Not anymore, anyhow.”

“…so does anyone know I’m alive?”

“Everyone who needs to know—“

“Kaidan?” Shepard gripped her hand, and Miranda shook her head.

“No. Probably not,” she said when his blank eyes stared up at her. “The last signal they would have received would have been the Crucible explosion.”

“It… the explosion…”

“Yes,” she sighed, closed her eyes.

He opened his mouth as if to ask another question, but instead ran a thumb over Miranda’s knuckles and tried to yawn, ending up coughing instead.

They sat in silence for a while like that, and Shepard’s eyes began fluttering, his pulse dropping on the monitors, dozing.

“I’ll answer every question I can, Shepard. In time,” Miranda said at last.

“You sound tired, Miranda. You should get some rest.” Shepard said softly, body limp against the hospital bed. Miranda bowed her head and exhaled silently.

“I don’t need much sleep. And now that you’re awake… it’ll change my schedule a bit. I should get to work.”

“Miranda?” he muttered, just at the edge of sleep.

“…yes, Shepard?” Miranda swallowed hard, she gently turned up the drip on Shepard’s sedative IV. His eyes fluttered.

“All… VIs…?”

“Yes. It seems like it.”

Shepard made a sort of moan, “But the Reapers…?”

“Gone.”

“…Normandy…? Kaidan?”

“They’re safe Shepard. I’m sure they’re safe. You need to rest, now.”

“Still… don’t feel like… I’m alive…”

“You are Shepard. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Fixing Shepard is slow and painful work, especially with his mounting guilt and grief.


	45. The Difference between the Edge and the Horizon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A small snapshot of Shepard's long road to recovery, Miranda's efforts, and the mounting grief Ben feels at the choice he has made.

The drugs Shepard received intravenously we no match for the pain. The problem of having so many cybernetic components grafted to flesh was that every twitch and pulse through the systems tore at his muscle fibers and spasmed against bone. The VI’s that could perform simulations on whether or not Miranda’s new codes would work were themselves inoperable, so every time she ‘finished’ programming a piece of Shepard, she needed to test it in his actual body. The sedatives helped, but local anesthetic would mean the cybernetic interfaces could not calibrate appropriately, and to totally sedate Shepard would not have allowed for feedback.

Shepard kept a knowing smile on his face whenever his nurse stopped by, and often when Miranda was hovering over his bed. But when she returned to her desk, he would turn toward the wall, the pained expression on his face amplified by his hollow cheeks and the extreme, glowing scars across his cheeks, jaw, forehead.  Whenever Miranda needed to perform a relatively high maintenance piece of coding, Shepard wanted to sleep, and when she left for the night to sleep herself, Shepard lay awake.

“Any word on Normandy?” It was their morning ritual, he and Miranda.

“Not yet Shepard, the Relay system… some of them work, but…”

Or the next day:

“Did I hear Kaidan in the hall?”

“No, Shepard. No word yet. I wouldn’t keep him from you, not for a minute.”

Or:

“How could the Crucible discriminate between different VIs? Maybe newer AIs, like EDI?”

“It’s… they just don’t know Shepard. There’s been no word from the geth, but, but every intelligent program on the planet is dead.”

And again:

“Normandy?”

“No, Shepard.”

And the Alliance came to check in on Shepard, but Miranda made sure they never made it past the elevator.

Sometimes Shepard would start awake and turn his sightless gaze toward Miranda:

“Why is it so quiet?”

“It’s not?” Miranda looked around the room, the beeping heart monitor, the hum of the pipes, “Would you like some music Shepard?”

But she played music, he would inevitably wake up not long after, complaining it was still too quiet: that something was _missing_. The music didn’t help. So she turned it off again.

He would wake up freezing cold, or shush his nurse mid-sentence and ask him if he’d heard a noise.

So when the Alliance came back, medals in hand and data-pads full of questions, Miranda stopped them before they even reached the elevator.

The weeks went by like that. Shepard’s lungs failed and had to be ‘rebooted’ while a breathing tube was inserted. Miranda borrowed a team of experts to come in and double-check her code, only to send them all away when they clearly couldn’t keep up with the level of code she was programming.

There was a problem. The cybernetics that had regulated many of Shepard’s bodily functions since Cerberus revived him were designed to mimic the function of those organs that were badly damaged or totally destroyed when his hardsuit depressurized.

Additionally, the nanites in his blood stream were designed to slowly siphon stem-cells produced in Shepard’s bone-marrow and direct them to other cybernetic interfaces to stimulate regrowth of the tissues the cybernetics were supplementing. Rebooting this process had become Miranda’s top priority, now that Shepard’s body could breathe on its own.

“I don’t _need_ to look again, Dr. Raj,” Miranda said into the comms as she continued coding string after string of new VI commands into her data-pad, “I established the regeneration priority for myself. Regrowing the workings of Shepard’s inner ear was a much lower priority than his lungs. And while I _have_ recoded the cybernetics controlling Shepard’s breathing, I haven’t touched the code for his auditory implants. Shepard should not be able to hear. No, I _don’t_ want you to worry about this, Dr. Raj. Instead, I would like you to focus on ensuring that when I ask for a chemical compound that produces a certain effect, it delivers the desired effect. Actually, that will no longer be necessary. Your assistance with Shepard’s treatment is no longer required. Well then, you’ll have to take that up with the admiralty.”

Shepard stirred on the bed, and Miranda hastily cut the comms and came to his side. He was murmuring indistinctly as she gently took his limp hand once again.

“Shepard? Can you hear me?”

“Miranda?”

“Yes, Shepard. Still me.” Miranda eyed the sedative drip, adjusting the pain-suppressant as much as she could. “How would you rate your pain, this morning?”

“Umm…” Shepard scrunched his eyes shut, “Sev—six?”

 “Good, Shepard. Good.” She turned back to the desk, and took up her data-pad before pulling her chair over next to Shepard’s bed, “I’m sorry, I have another few hours of coding to get through before I can start in on the implants for your eyes. I know I promised you it’d be today but—“

“It’s… fine, Miranda,” Shepard simply closed his eyes, gave a little smirk.

Miranda brushed a lock of hair behind her ear.

“You’ve woken up earlier than expected once again. Guess I should’ve learned a powerful sedative can’t keep you down.”

“Just… the way… you built me.” Shepard’s voice dissolved into a dry cough.

“Easy there, Commander. You’re literally not half the man you used to be,” she teased, adjusting his pillows behind his head while he struggled to push himself up into a sitting position, “Shepard! You really shouldn’t move around so much.” She caught Shepard’s arm as it gave. In a few minutes she had him settled, readjusting the cords and tubes connecting him to various old, non-VI dependent life support systems. Shepard kept his eyes down, but attempted a smile when Miranda finally patted his shoulder.

“Thanks.”

“Of course. Least I can do for the man who saved the galaxy.” The smile fell from her face as Shepard’s expression turned grim. “…how are you feeling? Really?”

He didn’t respond.

“Shepard?”

“Everything hurts.”

“Well, yes. I’m sorry about that. In order to test the regenerative capabilities of the synthetics I’ve had to dial back your anesthetic.”

“Regenerative capabilities?” Shepard coughed, “So you’re finally going to fix up my face so I can look pretty for all the vids?”

Miranda guffawed.

“ _I’ve_ been staring at that unconscious face for a long time now, and _trust_ me: you’re a super-model compared to how you looked when they brought you in.”

“You’re going to make me blush.”

“Careful Shepard,” she smirked holding aloft the data-pad with Shepard’s VI code on it: circulatory regulation, “I really could.”

Shepard laughed.

“I… can’t believe anyone found me… the Citadel…”

Miranda cast him a sidelong look.

“…yes, well, the Alliance is curious about that too.”

Shepard tensed, spoke softly:

“I have… a lot to tell. A lot to answer for. But not right now. Not till I see him…”

“No, it’s not like that, Shepard!” she put a hand on his arm, “You’re a hero, no one doubts that! They’re going to cover your chest in medals, but they think that hearing about what happened to you up there will… help them solve some of the problems that have cropped up since.”

“What kinds of problems?” Shepard closed his eyes.

“That’s not really important,” Miranda shook her head. “The Citadel is… we can’t get aboard.”

“What?”

“It’s hard to explain, but no one has heard from or been able to access the Citadel since the Wave.”

“How did you get _me_ off the Citadel?”

“…You… Shepard they found you in London.”

Shepard closed his eyes, chest spasming against his attempts to still his rapid breathing.

“Oh.”

“What’s the last thing you remember, Shepard?” Miranda stood carefully, watching Shepard’s eyes as his expression slipped between panic and anger.

“I was aboard the Crucible. There was an explosion.” His jaw locked down again. Miranda waited.

“And then?”

“That’s all,” Shepard’s grip on the sheet tensed.

“What caused the explosion? Is that how the Crucible was meant to function?”

“That’s _all_ ,” Shepard growled. Miranda straightened her posture and studied the lines on Shepard’s face, the fury in his eyes.

“Alright, Shepard. I’m sorry to trouble you.”

“No trouble,” he muttered. Miranda returned to her desk and continued coding to her data-pad, distracted by the way Shepard slumped into himself the way he trembled every few minutes, clutched his head, clenched his fists before sighing heavily.

“Are you alright, Shepard? I can increase the sedative so you can sleep?”

“No, I don’t… I’ve been asleep too long.” Shepard shivered again, “Is… there something wrong with my head? My brain? Any implants off line?”

“Other than the sensory implants, no. Your brain was intact, otherwise even Cerberus’ resources probably couldn’t have brought you back. I’ve been fixing the nanite interface, but you should feel that everywhere _but_ your head: it’s connected directly to your brain.”

“It feels like… something should be there… Like there should be voices…” He began to shiver, teeth chattering. “I feel cold.”

“Again?” Miranda stood up again, coming to look at his vital signs, “Your body temperature reads normal. I’ll turn up the heat.” She increased the heat in the room, opening the front of her suit a little more as she watched the temperature in the room rise.

“My mind… it feels like… someone ripped off the cast before the bone was healed…” Shepard struggled to bring the blanket around himself. Miranda paced at the foot of the bed, eye-brows stitched together in worry, gaze divided between Shepard’s pained expression and the data-pad in her hand.

“Damn, Shepard. I’m not very good at this.”

“At what?” Shepard replied wearily.

“I should be taking your mind off this,” she sighed. And despite his shivering, Shepard actually chuckled. “I’ve been told I don’t have much of a bedside manner.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, honestly. People find me abrasive.”

“Really?” He smirked.

“Honestly, people—“ she looked up at Shepard, his eyes closed and a smile tugging at his lips, “Oh you _ass_.” She laughed a little as if testing the sound, “What I’m getting at is that I’m not very good at chit-chat, or taking someone’s mind off something. I spent most of my career working alone. You’ve been a corpse for the majority of the time I’ve known you.”

“It’s alright, Miranda. I appreciate what you’re doing for me. What you’ve done for me.” Shepard’s shivering had abated a little.

“Oh. Well… thank you, Shepard.” She sat back at Shepard’s bedside, tapping idly at her data-pad, “You said before—and I know you don’t want to talk about the Crucible right now, and I respect that—but you said you needed to talk to _him_?”

Shepard didn’t even turn toward the sound of her voice, blank stare gazing straight up.

“Kaidan.”

“I thought maybe you meant, Admiral Anderson.”

Shepard’s brows furrowed.

“No.”

“He means a lot to you, doesn’t he? Kaidan Alenko.”

“Yes.”

Miranda pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead and suppressed a sigh, but Shepard seemed to feel the movement and huffed a sigh for her.

“I’m sorry, Miranda. I… this feeling in my head, like something’s missing. Like it’s too quiet… and then all I do is lie here and sleep and worry about him.” He closed his eyes, “I’m not good at this either: being helpless like this.”

“We make quite the pair,” she smiled, weary. “You’re going to hate the next phase of your treatment, then…”

“Why’s that?” This time, his head turned with the sound of her shoes on the tile as she walked back to her desk.

“Your brain was mostly intact when Cerberus recovered your body,” Miranda sifted through a number of data-pads, scrolling quickly through their read-outs with a furrowed brow. “But bringing back ‘you’ was a lot more difficult than jumpstarting your brain.”

“VIs?” Shepard rolled his eyes. “In my head too, huh?”

“Not exactly,” Miranda set twelve particular pads in front of herself, sliding the rest to the edge of the desk. “It’s actually a thin carbon webbing of—“ she shook her head. “Never mind. The important thing is that I need to make sure the nanite control functions are operating, or your body will never heal.”

“Alright… that… makes sense,” Shepard frowned, coughed.

“Have you ever had brain surgery, Shepard?”

“Not since getting my implant,” Shepard answered slowly.

“It’s going to be a little like intraoperative brain mapping, the way the webbing is constructed.” Miranda looked smoothed her collar and stared balefully down at her data-pads. “And during brain surgery, the best thing you can do…” she picked up the furthest pad to the left, “Is keep talking.”

“Keep talking?”

“Yes. To be honest, I was a little worried about doing this part while you were in a coma. Not that I’m thrilled about doing it now. But a little later I’ll need you to do some counting, or identify some pictures for me—the nanites will be doing all the work, but the webbing has the capability to overwrite healthy brain tissues, and I don’t want to do that.” She rolled her eyes, “Obviously.”

She stared at the consternated Shepard for a moment before he spoke.

“What should I talk about?”

“Memories are best. Maybe try not to think of anything too painful,” she added, quickly.

“I don’t really have any painful memories till… the war.” Shepard’s answer came a little too quickly, and Miranda bit her lip.

“Even so. Just, about your childhood maybe.”

“What do you want to know?”

Miranda drummed her fingers on the table.

“Well, I’ll be pretty busy with the coding, so I can’t exactly interview you—“

“—okay. Yeah, okay—“

“—but if you just want a topic to get you started—“

“—so I guess I just ramble—“

“—honestly I don’t even need to be in the room if you feel uncomfortable—“

“—just… start talking—“

“—you’d have to _promise_ to keep talking though—“

“—and don’t stop talking—“

“—if you fall asleep…”

“Okay, no. I can do this,” Shepard concluded, but his brows were scrunched tight over his eyes.

And so they sat.

Three minutes.

Five minutes.

“As a child… I…” Shepard cleared his throat. “Was in a gang.”

Miranda stared helplessly, her data-pad clattered to the desk.

“I bet, um, Kaidan doesn’t have this much trouble getting your life story out of you?”

“Kaidan,” Shepard smiled, but a moment later his eyes closed and his body sagged. “No. But I trust Kaidan.”

“I understand,” Miranda replied.

“It’s not like that,” Shepard made to run a hand down his face, but he was only strong enough to reach his chest. “My past isn’t important to me. Or it wasn’t. There was no point in telling it to anyone. Until Kaidan asked.”

“What about getting to know somebody?”

“People need to _feel_ like they know you,” Shepard sighed. “Right here. In this moment. What happened in the past, I wouldn’t just talk about that to anybody. Only somebody who really wanted to know. Somebody who I trusted to want that. Someone who…”

“I see,” Miranda leaned heavy on her arms, “Pretend like you’re telling it to Kaidan, if you have to. But, please, I need this to help you, Shepard.”

Shepard turned his face toward Miranda’s voice, but instead made eye-contact with the wall behind her.

“I talked to Kaidan about when he was a kid. Scrappy kid, skinned knees, mud in his hair. I can hardly imagine it. Had parents that loved him… wanted the best for him, but he still had so many problems. Poor kid.”

Miranda tentatively picked up a data-pad and began her calculations. Shepard continued.

“I joined the Reds,” He paused, wrinkled his nose. “The Reds _found_ me early. Kids were cheap to keep around, most of us took care of ourselves. I picked pockets, I distracted the cops, I snitched on people. Some of the other kids were always trying to do more jobs. Practically begging for it, even. I could never understand that.

“I did the job, I got the money. I hid the money, I stole the food I needed. I came back when I needed more money. Some of the kids wanted a lot more—I didn’t understand that. Some of the kids were just eager to please—I didn’t understand that either.”

Shepard paused for a moment, a coughing fit making the whole bed and all the monitoring equipment shake. Miranda waited patiently while Shepard sputtered out an apology.

“But it was getting harder to pick-pocket, I was getting bigger. People expect mischief out of little kids. They don’t think about getting pick-pocketed by them, though. But the older I got, the more people gave me sideways looks. Like I was dangerous, not just a troublemaker. When I got caught, instead of getting a slap, they would try to break my arm.

“I wasn’t hungry, but I was going to get there soon. I thought that’s why the other kids were trying to get so much money: in case they got big and couldn’t steal as easy anymore. So I decided I needed to work more for the Reds.

“Every one of the kids the Reds threw a bone to, they all pretended to be little Reds. So they had their own hierarchies. I had always stolen. I could outrun anyone that was trying to fight with me, and I had always been small enough to sneak and get anything I needed. But the kids that got the most food were the big kids. The kids the Reds used to beat up other kids. Just like the big guys on the Reds who did all the guarding, all the enforcing. Needed all that food to get big and stay big.

Shepard tried to pull himself up to a more erect sitting position and eventually gave up, sinking back into the same dint in the pillow. Miranda looked up briefly from her data-pad.

“The next time some kid called me a name, I went off on him. He’d hurt his arm the week before—falling out a window, he was… it’s not important—but I knew his arm was bruised.” Shepard’s voice grew distant, “He shoved me, I shoved him. He shoved back. I broke his bad arm. Just the way I’d seen the older Reds do it. Then I punched his gut and I kept punching.” Shepard’s fingers gently scraped over the rough hospital blanket bunched at his waist. “I said ‘You need to be better to be a Tenth Street Red.’ And that did it.”

Miranda raised an eyebrow when Shepard stopped talking.

“You made a calculated decision to protect yourself.”

“After a while, my definition of ‘protection’ changed,” Shepard scowled. “But I _really_ became a Red. I was the ‘muscle.’ Shot up quick, barrel-chest, gut.” Shepard started laughing, suddenly, “I used to be able to float—when we would go up to the sea?—I could float with just my head. Just… be still, tilt my head back, buoyant enough to just float there. Stare up at the sky…”

Miranda looked up, startled for a moment. Opened her omni-tool.

“The kids made fun of me: big, dumb Shepard. I didn’t care. I had what I needed, and on good days, I got to go to the sea. Swim in the water. Float on my back. Dive as deep as I could.”

After a few moments, Miranda looked, conflicted, between her omni-tool and Shepard. Finally, she closed her omni-tool and resumed typing on her pad.

“There was this boy. Just about my age. Name was Mahmud. We called him Jru. He was cute: big brown eyes, when his hair was wet all the curls came untangled and bobbed around his face. He’d shake his head and it would make me laugh sometimes. This little patch of hair right on his chest. Had a birthmark,” Shepard tried to raise his finger to his chin again, “right here. Under his jaw. Below his ear. I used to rub my thumb over it when we made out.

Shepard swallowed.

“He always wanted to go to the sea with me. I wanted to go all the time, but I usually didn’t talk about it much. I needed to be the quiet muscle. Couldn’t always want to play in the sea. He wasn’t too useful to the Reds. I shared my food with him. He thought I was the nicest person in the world. But I knew I needed to cut back on how much I was eating.

“When I was a kid, being big was an advantage. By the time I was a teen, all the kids had seen the vids where the big bouncer looked intimidating but he went down with one punch. I could hold my own, size or not, but if people are intimidated, you don’t need to fight. I didn’t want to hurt people. So I needed to shed the weight, gave Jru some of my food. Had an excuse to go to the sea: swim, get in shape. The Reds acted like it was because I was ‘too calm’ and needed to ‘get out all that aggression’ in the water so I could be ‘quiet Shepard’ the rest of the time.”

Shepard’s eyes rolled back into his head for a moment, drawing a deep sigh out of his chest.

“They tried convincing boys on the street to go home with me. ‘Take out some of that energy between the sheets, that way you don’t have to go all the way across town.’ No. Never. Had to know somebody. To trust somebody. Just trust them—know that I could trust them with my life. Not the same thing as a friend, but… “

He swallowed.

“Jru wasn’t the first boy I slept with. But he was the first I slept with twice. He was easy to make laugh. I knew when he was sad and I could turn it around. I knew how to make him leave me alone. I knew how to make sure the Reds didn’t think he was a waste of time.”

Shepard closed his eyes.

“…I liked being in the sea. It was dark, huge. I would hold my breath and dive down, deep as I could. It was comforting.” He shivered suddenly, “Not like… Despoina… Leviathan.” He shook his head violently, trying to steady his breathing. “A-anyway,” he winced, “Umm. And… even if someone else was in the water… it was like you were alone. Underwater. That felt good. Surrounded on all sides, the feel of the water pressing into my ears, all around my body. Couldn’t hear anything, could barely see anything.

“And then when I floated on top of the water, and I would stare up at the clouds? Underwater it felt like it went down forever, but you knew it didn’t. On the surface, you could look across the water and think that the sea stopped at the horizon, but it didn’t.

“I had seen some couples that looked like they were inseparable. But they still fought. They still broke up. You would look at them and think you knew where they fit together, but they were always just parallel,” he held his hands up, almost as if praying, but his palms didn’t touch. “They were two different people, in the end. 

“I knew how to make Mahmoud laugh. There was so much I didn’t understand about him though—just like those kids always sucking up to the Reds. But it was a long time before I was interested in everything I wasn’t going to be able to figure out about people,” Shepard said quietly. “You know the sun goes down in the west, but you’ll never find the spot. And there are choices…” his voice caught in his throat. His eyes were closed now, head rolling back and forth on the pillow. “Choices you make and you’re never going to understand what’s at stake, or what means. Parallel lines. It looks like the horizon is where everything meets, but it isn’t. They’re parallel lines all the way around. Just like two people: two choices. And then no one will ever be able to understand why you made that choice… and maybe you made the wrong one. The selfish choice. Chasing the sun…”

He leaned back on the pillow and finally willed his hand to cover his eyes. Miranda stopped typing after a moment.

“…Shepard? Are… you still awake?”

“Yeah,” He muttered. “I’ve never really talked about that.” He forced a chuckle out between his teeth, “If you could _not_ put any of that in your report, I’d appreciate it… it’s not secret, just personal.”

Miranda looked up with a furrowed brow.

“I didn’t get most of it, Shepard,” she said, carefully. “You slipped into Arabic pretty early in the story. Your omni-tool is fried, and I… just figured you didn’t want me to hear.”

It was almost as if Shepard’s eyes found hers, expression awash with conflicting emotions.

“I see.”

“Umm,” Miranda stood up abruptly, “Let’s move on, shall we? I’ll show you some images…”

++

The tests continued: Shepard talking about frivolous nothings, counted in all the languages he spoke, identified pictures of his city (pre-war, of course) and all sorts of animals, people, and places.

He got exhausted quickly, and Miranda allowed as many breaks as she could. He was very careful not to slip back into Arabic, but largely they avoided talking about anything prior to his Alliance service history for the rest of the process. Miranda slowly mapped which parts of his brain were interacting with the nanite web and which subroutines needed to be remounted.

When the brain operation was finally completed, Miranda threw the data-pad to the desk and stretched her neck, wiping the sweat from her brow with the handkerchief she kept.

“Now what?” Shepard asked, dully.

“I think we could both stand a break.”

“Learning to lighten up a little bit, Ms. Lawson?” Shepard grinned, “I’m glad.”

“I know not to exhaust an asset,” she replied breezily.

“What shall we do to relax?” He scooched down the bed to lay more prone, “You should try one of these beds. Very relaxing.”

“I know you’re tired of talking, but,” she leaned forward with a wicked smirk. “Tell me about Kaidan.”

“Are we gabbing about boys, now?” he laughed.

“’We’ are trying.”

“Kaidan…” Shepard breathed deeply. “That’s a long story.”

“Fortunately, I need to write thousands of lines of code.” Miranda smirked, “Obviously I read his complete profile while I worked for Cerberus, and we talked a bit at the party but I’m interested what you see in him. I’ve never known you to have much of a romantic side.”

Shepard smiled, let himself sink back into his pillows a little more with a wince, “I’ve been in love with Kaidan Alenko a long time.” He said softly.

“Oh? I’m quite sure I never read that in my Cerberus profiles. And they were very thorough.” She smirked.

“Guess it can’t tell you everything,” Shepard took a deep breath, “He saw both sides of me. He sees both sides of everything. I hope he’s safe. This galaxy needs… _I_ need him.” He swallowed hard, “I hope he’s alright.”

++

Over the next few days, Miranda quickly improved on her socialization skills, keeping Shepard talking about his mood, his service, Kaidan. Shepard drifted in and out of sleep, sometimes roused by shivering or a sudden groan. Miranda would struggle to bring him back into conversation. But there were still some days where he couldn’t concentrate for the eerie sense of a noise he should be hearing, but could not.

“Alright Shepard,” she announced one morning, “Let’s see if we can get your eyes working again.”

“I like the sound of that.”

Miranda set down her data-pad, shaking her hair out of its bun, zipping and smoothing her uniform. “Tell me what you can see.” She uploaded the code and Shepard blinked suddenly.

“E-everything’s… there’s some bright blotches of color…” Shepard stuttered, trying to squint. Miranda called up her direct interface and made some adjustments.

“How about now?”

“Blurry.”

“Alright… now?”

Shepard turned his head to the side, blinking quickly and looking up at Miranda.

“Ah, there you are, Miss Lawson.”

Miranda beamed.

Fully adjusting the implants proved to be a time-consuming process. After an hour of eye-charts, color blocks, low-contrast holo simulations, and quick refocusing tests, Shepard was clearly exhausted.

“Alright, final test. Close your eyes,” Miranda ordered, biting her lip. When she gave the word, Shepard opened his eyes, and Miranda held a picture of Kaidan in front of him. “I thought now that you could see, some decorations might be in order. His Spectre induction ceremony. It’s the only one I could find that wasn’t his official Alliance portrait…” she stuttered, shuffling when Shepard only stared.

Frail fingers curved around the frame, and she helped him get a grip on the picture. His eyes glistened, and he stared for a long time.

“This wasn’t even that long ago,” he whispered. “He looks so young.” He met Miranda’s eye, the first time since he’d woken up. “Thank you, Miranda.”

She shrugged, but when she turned back to her desk, she was beaming.

However, as she began writing her reports and polishing off some lines of code, Shepard’s face fell. He touched the portrait, looked deep into the image, and exhaled a shuddering breath.

“This is actually fairly amazing Shepard. I’m having to adjust your implants far more than I should have had to. That means your optic tissues have regenerated much faster than our original—“

“Miranda,” Shepard croaked, “…the pulse the Crucible sent out… how far did it reach?” His head was turned to the wall now, but his heartrate on the monitor was on the rise. He had laid the portrait on his lap.

“We… we actually don’t have any way of knowing that. Based on what intel has gotten back to Earth, the wave each Relay sent out overlapped with every other pulse. I’d be surprised if there was a cubic meter of space the Reapers could hide in.”

“All the way to…” Shepard trailed off, grimacing.

“To where, Shepard?”

“Nevermind.”

“Shepard, I—“ her omni-tool beeped and she cursed, stepped into the hall. Shepard’s heartrate spiked, and his chest surged, taking deep pained gasps. He covered his eyes, let out a choking sob, hand sliding down over his lips to quiet the pleading noises he muttered between his fingers.

_“Admiral, I understand your concerns, but Shepard is not in any condition for ‘debriefing’. If I am to be the head of this project…”_

Shepard’s gaze turned to the door, a sharp intake of breath cutting off the anguished gasping. The more he listened, the quieter he grew.

_“No, I cannot rush this. He is already awake weeks ahead of schedule, questioning Shepard at this time is absolutely out of the question.”_

His eyes narrowed.

_“I’ve given all the intelligence all I have on the Illusive Man’s whereabouts. Am_ I _to be questioned along with Shepard? Call it what you will, Admiral, but Shepard is in a critical stage of his recovery…”_

At the mention of the Illusive Man, Shepard’s mouth twisted into a scowl, suddenly wincing and clutching at his head. When the door opened and Miranda strode in, Shepard turned his face to the wall to compose himself, laying his hands back at his sides.

“I’m sorry about that Shepard, I’m… on call for a lot of the military brass right now.”

“Must be pretty swamped. They still pumping you for information on Cerberus?” Shepard’s tone was calculated.

“Here and there. Don’t worry though, Shepard: you’re my top priority right now.” She smiled and shook a hand through her dark hair.

“The Illusive Man is dead,” Shepard said, staring down at his motionless legs. Miranda stopped abruptly and stared.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The Illusive Man. He’s dead. Anderson too. You can call the Admiral back and tell him.”

“How... do you know?”

“The Illusive Man was waiting for us on the Citadel,” Shepard’s hands began trembling, his eyes wide, jaw set as he drew a breath through his teeth, “…he was indoctrinated.”

“…and you killed him?”

“No. He shot himself. In the head. I saw him die.”

“He just… shot himself?” Miranda’s voice was gentle, she inched closer to the bed. Shepard shot her a challenging look. “…and Admiral Anderson?” At that Shepard’s face twisted in tightly controlled rage, brows raised. He turned away.

“He’s dead.”

“How—“ She reached to take Shepard’s hand and he flinched away, “I—I’m sorry, Shepard.”

She turned away from the bed, both hands running through her hair and interlocking behind her neck. The beep of Shepard’s heart monitor slowed. On the desk, data-pads waited stacked, each full of discrete VI subroutines… weeks of work. A single bead of sweat dripped from the tip of Miranda’s nose onto the surface of the desk.

“I’m sorry, Miranda.”

She breathed slowly into a smile, wiped her handkerchief down her face and turned back to Shepard’s bed.

“Why are you _sorry_ , Shepard?” Her voice was weary, but she teased, “You’re not going to hurt my feelings by being traumatized from almost dying _again_.”

“I’ll gladly face the music. But I can’t go until… I need to tell them in person… Joker… Kahlee. And I… I need to see him one more time. I couldn’t be…” Shepard swallowed hard, turned over the picture of Kaidan to stare again. Miranda had pulled her chair to his bedside and placed her hands on the bed, inches from his fist clenching around the sheets. He turned to her, the tears trickling down his cheek diverted by the glowing scars that lined his face, “I couldn’t be what he saw in me.”

“Shepard,” Miranda hands carefully closed around Shepard’s fist, “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. You saved all of us.”

“Not all.” Shepard’s gaze held steady, and at last Miranda turned away, rallying herself with a shake of her head.

“No, not all. It was war, Shepard. The worst the galaxy is ever going to see again. You didn’t kill those people… or the _geth_ or whatever… the Reapers—“

“’The Devil loves the moment of indecision,’” Shepard said quietly, and the picture of Kaidan in his hands stared out at him in judgement. Miranda sat with him another few moments in silence. She kissed his hand, and she got back to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> A reunion.


	46. The Difference between a Hero and a God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Normandy returns to Earth.

“…we’re being hailed,” Joker said, lifting his head to talk over his shoulder, “What do you want to do.”

“Patch me through.”

“Here we go…” Joker mumbled.

“Alliance Control, this is Major Kaidan Alenko, acting captain of the SSV Normandy.”

The blue rim of Earth loomed large in the window.

The crew of the Normandy had criss-crossed the galaxy. Finding a working relay should have cut their journey down significantly, but they had ended up near the Krogan DMZ rather than the Charon Relay and Sol System.

Once they’d found a working relay, Liara and Traynor were better able to discover which components of the vast Relay system were still operational. But every time they ended up in another system on the other side of the known Universe from Earth, they discovered ships and worlds in chaos. Between resupplies, refugees, defending colonies from mercenary attacks… Even James had seen his fill of fire.

Rallying a group of war-weary colonists against a mercenary warlord who had stockpiled his troops and weapons to wait out the war, being turned away from an asari outpost by warships that never answered their hails, salvaging parts from a derelict cargo carrier that had burned out weeks ago: space was an empty tapestry with pin-pricks chaos wherever Normandy happened to find life.

_“This is Alliance Control… Welcome home, Normandy.”_

Before the comm channel closed, the sound of applause around the control room filtered through. Joker grinned.

“Thank you, Control. It’s good to be back.”

_“Major,”_ it was Admiral Hackett’s voice, _“A hero’s welcome to you and your crew, we’ve all been waiting to see your signal on LADAR—“_

The cheering and celebrating in the control room was obvious behind Hackett’s voice as he informed the Normandy of the condition of the Relay network, the Fifth Fleet, and the reconstruction efforts in London.

Garrus, Tali, Liara, Javik, James, Steve, Dr. Chakwas, Greg, and Samantha had been standing by, and now crowded around Kaidan as the CIC crew pressed together just outside the door of the cockpit. Every crewman not engaged in docking prep was lined up down the gangway, brows furrowed, some with arms crossed. The stillness, the hush, belied the sense of impatience in the air. Kaidan’s eyes were fixed on the Earth below them. Coming over the horizon: a thin white streak that was the Citadel, closed, an aura around it like prismatic soap-bubbles.

“Admiral,” Kaidan said, interrupting Hackett’s update on the state of the Citadel, “It’s good to hear your voice, and I’m sorry to be rude, but my crew is tired and we all wanna know one thing…”

++

“ _Admiral, if this is about another ‘debrief’ with my patient I’m afraid I’m—“_

Shepard’s eyelids fluttered against the steady drip of the sedative.

“ _Of course, get him down here immediately!”_

++

“Shepard!”

Shepard’s head whipped around at the voice, by which time Kaidan was two short steps from the bed.

“Kaidan!” Shepard lunged up and threw his arms around Kaidan’s neck even as Kaidan’s arms wrapped around him. Shepard shuddered with a small sob, atrophied limbs struggling against his desire to hold Kaidan tighter. His fingers scrambled to tangle themselves in Kaidan’s uniform, to offer him purchase his muscles could not, but in that same moment his strength gave out. The sudden dead weight on Kaidan’s shoulders caused him to stumble into the side of the bed.

“Easy! Easy Ben, I’ve got you,” Kaidan choked. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

And he did.

His body was thin and frail, and Kaidan’s strong arms under Shepard’s supported him. Shepard let out a sputter that might have been a laugh or a cry, and Kaidan clutched him harder.

“I thought you were dead.” Shepard closed his eyes, finally draping his arms around Kaidan’s back.

“No. No, I just… I’m sorry it took so long to come back to you…” Kaidan placed a hand on the back of Shepard’s neck, fingers smoothing Shepard’s hair, “I’m here now. I’m here.”

“I… there’s so much…”

“I know Ben, I came as fast as I could…” Kaidan said softly into his ear. Shepard’s back began to spasm against the strange angle and Kaidan lowered him gently onto the mattress. He stroked Shepard’s hair gently, watched the light in his eyes as he caught his breath. “I love you, Ben.”

“I love you. You know I love you, Kaidan.” Shepard’s breathing shuddered, he choked back a smiling sob when Kaidan pressed a kiss above one of the new glowing scars on his forehead.

“Are you in pain?” Kaidan whispered, eyebrows knitting together as he took Shepard’s face between his palms, leaning over the bed. Shepard craned his neck to inspect the empty room and returned his gaze to Kaidan’s eyes.

“Yeah, everything hurts,” he chuckled, eyes crinkling at the corners. Kaidan rose to press the call button, but Shepard’s finger frantically clutched at his uniform to pull him back in, “No! It’s… you’re here. The drugs’ll dope me up.”

“Okay,” Kaidan smiled, eyebrows still furrowed. He stroked his fingers through Shepard’s hair, picking up a nearby towel to gently wipe Shepard’s face. And through it all he couldn’t look away, though his face was covered in scars, he body thin and weak, his skin pale, Kaidan looked at his love as he always did. His gaze was soft and steady. Shepard’s smile quivered for a minute,

“…you just missed snack time.” Shepard sputtered a laugh that became a coughing fit, but his smile held throughout when Kaidan laughed too, managing to complete his joke “…wouldn’t like…tubes…” between coughs.

“How long have you been waiting to say that?” He leaned their foreheads together, nuzzled against Ben’s cheek.

“I’m glad I got to say it at all.” Shepard raked his teeth across the chapped patches on his lips.

“Have they been taking care of you, Ben?” Kaidan turned and noticed the chair near the bed Miranda had left out for him, then immediately returned his fingers to stroke through Shepard’s hair.

“Miranda’s trying to fix the broken cybernetics. Keeping the Alliance off my back.”

“Trying to get a report out of you already?”

“I’m going to have to… to…” Shepard shivered and his eyes locked on Kaidan’s, “I don’t… I just don’t want to talk about that right now, if that’s alright.”

Kaidan’s eyebrows rose, and his hand squeezed Shepard’s tightly.

“Of course. I’m sorry. What… um… tell me what I can do.”

Shepard smiled shyly and licked his lips, “You can kiss me?”

Kaidan grinned, leaned over, placed a thumb on Shepard’s chin and tilted his face up. He captured Ben’s bottom lip between his, eyes open as Shepard’s closed and his chest heaved. For a moment they were frozen like that, Shepard’s arm crooked around Kaidan’s neck with trembling strength, and Kaidan gently pulling at Shepard’s lip, placing a smaller kiss on each eyelid before leaning their foreheads together again.

“Mm. I think I like this scruff,” Shepard nuzzled his nose through beard covering Kaidan’s jawline, warm breath coming in labored gasps, “Thank you.”

“I’ve been waiting a long time for that.” Kaidan said, eyebrows meeting on his forehead as Shepard laid a soft kiss on the pad of his thumb, leaned his face into Kaidan’s touch. Kaidan turned away for a moment to scooch the chair closer and Shepard winced as he attempted to reposition himself, “The last jump and the past week of flying didn’t leave me much… umm… time to shave. Speaking of scruff, I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen you clean shaven.”

“Miranda says it’s to keep an eye on the scars,” Shepard said wryly, leaning into Kaidan’s palm when he stroked Shepard’s face, “there’s this nurse that comes in every morning to help me with it, among other things. Lakely is his name. Miranda’s got him tip-toeing around, but if you stick around long enough you’ll see him.”

“Is that an invitation?” Kaidan grinned.

“…You probably have a lot to do…”

“Shepard,” Kaidan said, “I’m all yours,” and Shepard mirrored his grin.

“But your mother…?”

“I already called her during reentry. She knows I’m safe and that I’m visiting someone special,” He smiled brightly, “She’s with her sister in Burnaby. I’ll visit when you’re better.”

“That could take a while…” Shepard looked away.

“No place I’d rather be, Ben. Nothing’s pulling me away again.”

Mingled apprehension and happiness played across Shepard’s face, but he nodded slowly, smile wide.

“How is the Normandy?” He said, chastising himself with a shake of his head, “How is everyone? Garrus… you two were in pretty bad shape when… when…” he began breathing hard again, and Kaidan squeezed his hand.

“Chakwas got the two of us patched up pretty good. My bad leg fractured again in three places, I’ve… well my torso looks like a tic-tac-toe board from when my armor shattered.  Chakwas managed to save Garrus’ leg too. We were pretty busted up, but… I can honestly say we didn’t look half as bad as you.” He smiled, and the corner of Shepard’s lip curled.

“…EDI?” He asked quietly.

Kaidan slowly shook his head.

“The wave… the code’s in there somewhere, with enough work we could bring the governing VI back online… but EDI’s gone.”

Shepard’s eyes closed and he turned his face to the wall.

“How is Joker?”

“Hurting. But he’s going to be okay. He was happy to hear that you’re alive. Almost as happy as me,” he chuckled.

“…I told Joker he and EDI should get together, Kaidan.”

“Yeah, cuz you’re a nice guy. My man’s the best…” he tried to smile, then rushed to add: “And it was a great thing for both of them,” Kaidan reached out to turn Shepard’s face back to him, “Ben… you can’t blame yourself for what Joker’s going through.”

“I haven’t thought about much else,” Shepard said, closing his eyes and leaning his cheek into Kaidan’s touch, “Nothing except seeing you. What I would say… I’ve been trying not to think about… all those lives I… EDI. The geth. How many people like me with cybernetics are dead now?”

“It’s… it was war Shepard. You didn’t kill those people. You saved everyone. The only reason any of us are around to mourn those people is because of you, for god’s sakes!”

Shepard nodded slowly, but his expression fell, eyes glassy staring up into Kaidan’s. He let his head fall to one side and a shiver rattled through him, his jaw becoming suddenly tight. Ben seemed far away. The bed shook when he gasped and held his breath. Kaidan laid a hand softly on his arm and Shepard started.

“Y-you okay, Ben?”

“What?” Shepard blinked.

“You… what’s up?”

“N-nothing.” He struggled to pull himself up, eyes wide and racing around the room, “What were we… EDI?”

“Yeah,” Kaidan’s eyes narrowed, but Shepard gave a weary smile, “You know that EDI was willing to give her life to stop the Reapers. Those geth would’ve chosen death to subjugation.”

“But they didn’t have a _choice_. It just happened. It shouldn’t have happened the way it did. I wasn’t strong enough… or I wasn’t…” Shepard grimaced and clutched his head, seizing from another shiver.

“Woah now!” Kaidan rose to his feet, propping another pillow behind Ben’s back. Once Shepard was situated, he leaned over him, face stern. “We built the Crucible and we didn’t know what it would do, but no matter what, it was a better option than the Reapers. EDI, the geth, the rachni, every civilization in the galaxy helped build that thing, put their trust in it to have a fighting chance. _You_ did that, you brought everyone together.”

“But they put their faith in _me_ , too Kaidan!” Shepard stared, jaw set.

“They did, and good thing too, because no one else could’ve done what you did!”

“That’s not true… someone else would’ve—“

“It _is_ true, Shepard! You did it _and_ you came back to me—“

“Only because I sacrificed others—“

“And you’re going to get _better,_ dammit. You’re a hero and you can rest. You can rest with me…”

“But all those people—“

“There’s… please Shepard, there’s nothing that can be…”

“They’re dead!”

“The _Reapers_ are dead! They started this war! The deaths responsible are _their_ fault, dammit, not yours!” Kaidan was practically shouting. Shepard shrank away and turned his face to the side in disgust, twisting his head in an awkward angle before clutching his ears. Kaidan stumbled back from the bed before holding up his hands, “Shepard… I’m—I’m so sorry I didn’t mean—“

“No, it’s not you—shhh, do you hear? Are the monitors malfunctioning?” Shepard stared around the room wild-eyed, Kaidan followed the line of his gaze, eyes narrowing.

“Everything sounds fine Shepard…”

“I—Nevermind. It must be the drugs. I’ve been a little tired lately.” He sank back into his pillow. Kaidan softly took his hand back and eased himself into the bed-side chair once again. Both men sat in silence for a long time.

“I’m sorry I shouted. I’m so glad you came back to me, Ben,” Kaidan whispered into the back of Shepard’s hand. “I have no idea what you went through…” the words raked out of him, weariness weighing down the smile that had been on his lips.

“I want to tell you, and… I’m sorry I’m like this, I should be stronger for you…”

“No Ben, really.” Kaidan took Ben’s face between his hands again, “This isn’t about _strength._ Not even a little. You’re human, Ben. I love you. You are not _weak_ because you hurt. Never.”

Shepard turned, but his eyes could barely meet Kaidan’s stare without looking away. Kaidan drew his shoulders up with a heavy sigh, let his hands run gently down Shepard’s arm. “You used to ask me all the time… if I thought we were doing the right thing on the Normandy. Do you remember that?”

“Not really, no,” Kaidan was fixated on the scars in Ben’s fingers, softly rubbing the feeble palms with his thumb, unable to look him in the eye.

“You asked about those Cerberus scientists. How we knew who to help. You said it was a decision you couldn’t make until you were in that moment. Do you remember?”

“Yeah. Uh huh.”

“Why… did you ask me that?” Shepard curled his fingers tightly around Kaidan’s, and Kaidan looked up.

“Umm,” Kaidan rubbed a stubbled cheek against his shoulder and breathed deeply, “You’ve always been able to make good decisions.”

“You told me once that eventually we’d have to cut corners. Back when we were chasing Saren, you said that.”

“Everyone has to cut corners eventually.” Kaidan murmured, “We all have. We all do.”

“I tried… to behave… with integrity,” Shepard’s voice was choked.

“You did, Ben. You always have—“

“—but I cut corners…”

“That’s life, Ben! That’s the war, it forces you out, forces you to make those decisions and cut those corners,” Kaidan placed a hand over Shepard’s heartbeat, “and I’m _here_ for you, even when you have to. No matter what.”

“That’s why I thought it was funny,” Shepard closed his eyes, “Why you asked me for advice on how to make the right choice. I’ve been running from one objective to the next, always been confident in the decisions I was making. I think I just never really thought about it. I missed other roads along the way. You showed me that on Horizon.”

“Horizon? Shepard, you were _right_ on Horizon,” Kaidan said, Shepard began silently shaking his head, “You _were_! Cerberus was evil, but they were the only way to save lives. Saving _lives_. That’s what you do, Shepard. Saving lives is what mattered then and it’s what matters now.”

Shepard winced under Kaidan’s words.

“Saving lives… what if there was a way to save more lives…?”

“No, Cerberus was the only way to save human colonies.” Kaidan was breathing faster now, and leaned in, visibly trying to speak softly. “Who knows how long it would’ve taken the Alliance to finally investigate? And you’re not responsible for what they did after.”

“Cerberus?” Shepard’s brow furrowed, “No… not that… I was talking about…” he sighed and fell to silence. He shivered and swallowed a sob, he turned from Kaidan’s gaze like it blinded him.

“What is it, then?” Kaidan leaned in, but Shepard’s mouth opened wordlessly before he shook his head, turning at last.

“Kaidan, please,” he scooted higher on the bed and clasped his other hand over Kaidan’s, “You’ve been my guide. Please, just tell me… how do we move forward? After so much death, after what I did. What is the right thing to do, now? How can I know… with so many dead… is ‘integrity’ worth all that death?”

Kaidan blinked.

“I… Ben, you didn’t choose to kill—“

“—Kaidan, just… is it worth it? Is it enough?”

“…please just tell me what this is about,” Kaidan begged, holding Shepard’s hand to his lips and letting a tear trickle from his cheek to Shepard’s knuckle.

“The only thing I had in my life was death,” Shepard’s whisper was becoming manic, “Until you. When you’re with me, I feel like I can take on the universe. You gave me hope and a fighting chance. I didn’t expect that. Never expected that my strength could come… from someone I love. Then I was offered a choice. And I took that choice and… I was selfish… I didn’t know whether free-will mattered more than…” he swallowed hard, “I think… I didn’t know how to choose. So I chose you,”

Kaidan stared into Shepard’s eyes for a long time.

“Ben, I want to help you, but I don’t know what you’re saying,” he whispered.

“On the Citadel… after the coup…” Shepard said instead, “You could have gone back to Earth. You said it yourself, you probably could have done more good there… helped the people you cared about. I knew that too. And still, I asked you to come along… because… I needed you… not just as a member of my squad. I was selfish. I needed _you_.”

“The work we were doing was more important than anything else,” Kaidan whispered, squeezing down on Shepard’s trembling hand.

“Was I more important?” Shepard blurted out.

“…what are you asking me?”

“I needed you by my side. Because I felt something for you… on Virmire, was it the same? Was I selfish? Back then too?” he grimaced and rubbed a hand down his face, “I didn’t act with integrity when I asked you to join the Normandy, I wanted you there because _I_ wanted you there.”

“Ben I said I’d follow you into hell. Before I knew how much I loved you I would have followed you straight into hell,” Kaidan’s thick eyebrows raised, his expression pleading, “And if I thought you were doing anything for the wrong reason I wouldn’t have done that, and I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you.”

Shepard’s face fell, “I do love you Kaidan.”

“Always,” Kaidan forced a smile, forehead crinkling, “And we can be together now. We’ve always had to put the mission first—“

“—the mission, Kaidan—“

“—but now it’s over. You saved the galaxy Shepard. And nothing’s going to stand in our way.”

“I love you Kaidan, so please tell me how to go on with this,” Shepard’s fist had curled into the front of Kaidan’s uniform, pulling him in with as much strength as he could muster.

“It’s over Shepard, you did it. It’s done.”

“No… No it isn’t.”

“It is. You did it, the Reapers are dead.” He pulled back, resisting Shepard’s pull on his shirt, “That’s what matters. Focus on that.”

“I can’t… the Reapers are dead only because… because—”

“Because of all the civilizations that came before us, because of the sacrifice of EDI and the geth and Ashley and Thane, and all our friends,” An urgent whisper.

“They died because of me. Because all I’ve ever had is death, and finally I had something… and I couldn’t give it up…”

“No, Ben. You’re a hero. Do you hear me? A fucking _hero_!” Kaidan had placed his hands on Shepard’s face, “And I love you! I—“ Kaidan grit his teeth to stifle a sound welling up from the back of his throat, “The war’s over, and we can be together now.”

Shepard shivered as he looked up into Kaidan’s face, “I want that more than anything, Kaidan. That means the whole universe to me… but…” he swallowed, “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. I’m not proud of everything I’ve done… On the Crucible—“ Shepard choked and began to cough violently, Kaidan hoisted him to sitting on the bed and soothing his back until the coughing subsided. When Kaidan had wiped his mouth with a towel, Shepard eased back and closed his eyes.

“I want to help you. I want to hear about it, I really do. But no matter what it is… it doesn’t matter. I don’t care about all that,” Kaidan said softly once Shepard had caught his breath, “You’ve done a lot of good, Ben. Be proud of that. Everything you’ve done, everything that’s happened, has brought you back to me. And I wouldn’t change that for anything.”

Shepard’s eyes grew wide, and his breathing began to speed up, shaking his head softly as Kaidan continued:

“You’re not responsible for EDI’s death, Ben. Or the geth. You saved the galaxy, and you couldn’t have known about what the Crucible wave would do. Even if you did, it’s the price we had to pay for peace, and everyone understood that. If the solution was…. Hell, killing off all biotics or all bipeds or something you still would have done it and it still would’ve been the _right_ decision! You couldn’t have stopped the Crucible from doing what it did,” Kaidan said softly, leaning in to wrap his arms around Shepard, whispered in his ear, “You’re not a god, Ben.”

Shepard flinched and pulled back, the tremor in his brows settling into a stony expression, staring through Kaidan.

“…Ben?” Kaidan asked, hand hesitating to touch Shepard’s face, “Did I… say something wrong?”

Shepard blinked, a hollow smile coming to his lips, “No, thank you for talking to me. People need hope more than ever. I see that now.”

“Are… are you sure? You seem like you’re still a little…?”

“I’m fine. It’s just the drugs.” Shepard’s expression wavered just slightly, but Kaidan took his seat again and Shepard kissed his palm casually.

“Ben why do I feel like… like you just switched into ‘Commander’ mode?”

“Just tired.”

“You can tell me anything, Ben,” Kaidan sputtered, “I really do want to be with you, through the good and the bad. You know that, right?”

There was a hint of a pause before Shepard answered, smile impassive.

“I do know that, Kaidan.”

“Because… I know I’ve been saying how I didn’t want to waste any time. But the truth is… umm,” he looked down, “I think I was still dragging my feet a little. I’ve had a lot of time to think. But now I want to make sure, because before it was the end of the world, but now it’s just… us, and… it’s a gift, y’know? Goddammit.” Kaidan bolted up and brushed his hair back as he paced over to the desk, pounding a fist down on its surface, “This isn’t how I imagined this conversation going. I feel like… hell.”

“Hey,” Shepard said quietly from the bed, and Kaidan turned his head. Shepard’s expression was lost, his face a mirror for Kaidan’s own, “We’ve been talking about a lot of heavy stuff. I missed you.”

“Yeah,” Kaidan sighed, “Yeah. I guess I’ve just… thinking about seeing you again has been the only thing keeping me going, y’know? Helped me sleep at night.” He sat back down next to Shepard as the man nodded.

“’Haven’t been sleeping, Kaidan?’” Shepard smirked.

“…no,” Kaidan’s smile dissolved into a mask of anguish, lowering his head to the mattress.

Shepard lay a shaking hand on his head, and that seemed to be enough to cause Kaidan to nod, force himself upright. It took him a moment of deep breaths to compose himself.

“Tell me about the trip home?” Shepard asked softly, eyes betraying more worry than he let into his voice, “Miranda didn’t know anything about the Normandy’s whereabouts after the jump through the Charon relay.”

“Oh man,” Kaidan leaned back in his chair, his chuckle heavy, tired. His eyes were still red, “A lot of long interstellar flights looking for a Relay. It was touch and go, and we almost overloaded our static capacitors twice before we got to a system.”

“Hard to keep morale up?”

“Not at first. Heh. Threw a little party the first night. There were repairs, and plenty of work to do without—“ he glanced at Shepard, “Well, just plenty of work.”

“Party helps get people in the right headspace though. Good thought.”

“Yeah. Thanks. Eventually though, everyone remembered they had plenty of mourning to do once we got back. If we ever got back.” Kaidan inhaled deeply and made a low sound in the back of his throat at the two men lapsed back into silence.

“At least you didn’t have to worry about Reapers swinging in, I suppose?” Shepard offered, Kaidan huffed a small laugh.

“That’s true, although we did see plenty of derelict corpses. Found three really great capital ships, dead around a Relay, they were each the size of Harbinger,” Shepard eyes got wide, “and seeing them on the inside… well—“

“You didn’t _board_ them!”

“Well… yeah.”

“And you didn’t hear,” Shepard gulped, “voices? In your mind?”

“No, nothing like that. We checked and the indoctrination fields, however they worked, were completely offline,” Kaidan continued, rubbing the back of his neck, but Shepard continued to grow more agitated, “They are horrifying, Ben. But… to be walking in something that old… older than any living things—I mean that Reaper could have been millions and millions of years old—and to be made out of the collective knowledge of an entire _species_? I’m almost afraid to admit it, but it was a little humbling.”

“Y-yeah,” Shepard blinked heavily, whipping his head to the side as if suddenly distracted. At last he turned back to see Kaidan staring at him with concern, “I mean, leave it to you to still find the beauty in something like the Reapers.”

“Don’t get me wrong, they were the enemy and I’m glad they’re dead. But it’s like the geth consensus, well not exactly because the geth didn’t end up being evil they—uh,” he looked sheepishly at Shepard, who was again growing despondent, “What I mean is, something can be terrible and still fascinating. That’s what made the Reapers truly evil. How they got their knowledge, through killing others. Unacceptable. Still, the knowledge they had… to think all those civilizations are truly gone now.”

“…what do you think about that?” Shepard asked, barely a whisper.

“I dunno, Shepard. First time I’ve really gotten to process all that since we came upon those things. It’s been a pretty eventful trip home.”

“Well,” Shepard said quietly at last, “Sorry your first time as skipper turned out so… dire.”

“Mhm.”

“Mhm.”

“…though there were a few gunfights.”

“Oh?” Shepard said, an eyebrow quirked, “You know how much I love gunfights.”

Kaidan smirked, “Where do I even begin? Pirates raiding damaged merchant vessels, pirates attempting to make off with Reaper corpses, _pirates_ attacking tech platforms, colonial disputes, the Batarian Secession movement; we certainly got a work-out. Hardly ever pulled into a place to resupply where there wasn’t a crisis or a mystery to be solved or people to introduce to people to get what we needed.”

“So,” Shepard allowed a small laugh, “Just like old times, huh?”

“Not exactly.” Kaidan said, the smile immediately falling from his face as soon as he said it.

“Oh.” Shepard said, smile steady even as the laugh-lines around his eyes smoothed.

“I mean—Different for a lot of reasons. We weren’t chasing a rogue Spectre or trying to save the galaxy this time around, we were just… y’know. Trying to resupply. Trying to get home. In some ways it was easier to focus, but in a lot of ways it was harder,” Kaidan sighed, “And you weren’t there. People draw a lot of strength from you. I draw a lot of strength from you too.” He rubbed his thumb over the back of Shepard’s hand.

“I’m glad I can be that for you,” Shepard replied, almost without emotion, “But… don’t underestimate the influence you have on people. The hope you give them, and to me.”

“Hmm. Yeah,” Kaidan said, staring at the floor. Shepard’s heart monitor softly beeped out the passing seconds of uneasy silence, “Dammit, Shepard. I feel like I keep screwing this up. I haven’t really gotten to just talk much in the past few weeks.”

“No one on the ship very talkative?”

“You know what I mean,” Kaidan grumbled.

“No, what?”

“I mean _really_ talk. Like we did—do. I’ve been trying to hold everyone together and—“ Kaidan shook his head suddenly and took several deep breaths, “What I mean is, I feel like maybe I came in here expecting something and that made me shut you out again. I want you to know that I’m here for you. Do you… want to talk about the Crucible some more?”

Shepard went a little pale, his jaw set, but he shook his head slowly, “No. I’d like to hear more about you. You seem pretty stressed.”

“Of course I’m stressed Shepard!” Kaidan chuckled ruefully, “First time I’ve seen my boyfriend in… however long and I’m stuttering like an idiot.”

“So. When you imagined this conversation in your head, what did we talk about?”

The steady beeping of the heart-monitor.

“We talked about where we’d go next,” Kaidan said softly after a moment, rolling his eyes, “But somehow that doesn’t seem quite appropriate right now.”

“First I’ll have to wait until Miranda can fix me up.”

“How are you doing, really? Hackett said you were pretty busted up, and I gotta say you look a little like death warmed over.”

“Thanks!” Shepard huffed with a little smile, “Still paralyzed below the waist. The new VI code isn’t as streamlined as the old yet, so a lot of my senses feel dulled. It’s a long recovery yet.”

“I have to say, it’s good to know you’re staying in one place for a while,” Kaidan said, rising to his feet and stroking a hand down Shepard’s face, which Shepard leaned into, expression mixed, “And I’ll be here every step of the way, okay? Nothing’s gonna pull me away.”

Kaidan leaned in and placed a long, deep kiss on Shepard’s lips, teasing with his tongue.

Suddenly, there was a squeal at the door, and Kaidan and Shepard pulled apart suddenly.

“ _Oh my god!”_ it was Lakely, the nurse, at the door, clutching his data-pad to his chest in wide-eyed glee, “Ummm, oh. Oh my god. I’m so sorry to interrupt, Commander, I didn’t realize your… guest… was here.” He ran his fingers through his dark curls, “And sir! Oh my god, you’re Major Alenko! The Second Human Spectre!”

Shepard’s posture straightened and his expression locked down tighter as Lakely moved in to shake Kaidan’s hand, the ‘Second Human Spectre’ attempting to smile himself out of his grimace.

“Pleasure to meet you, Nurse Lakely is it? Shepard mentioned you’d been taking such good care of him.” Kaidan answered as Lakely pumped his hand up and down and up and down. Lakely’s eyes, if possible, got even wider.

“ _Did_ he now? Oh my goodness! Oh my god! It is _such_ an honor to meet you sir and _thank you_ so much for your service you’re a true inspiration—and I was saying this to the Commander—you are a _true_ inspiration to humans everywhere and to the whole galaxy. We all, I mean, just like Commander Shepard, we—all of us, just everyone—owes you their lives!” up and down and up and down he pumped Kaidan’s hand, “My wife and I are such huge fans of both you and the Commander, even before the invasion, I mean, we’ve been following Commander Shepard’s career, and so yours too, and my wife bet me one night—honest to god _bet_ me,” up and down and up and—“that _you—_ ‘Kaidan Alenko’ she said, ‘he’s gonna be the next Spectre, you mark my words’! and of course you were and we were so proud, everyone here at home was so proud.”

“Ummm,” Kaidan said, managing a charming smile and slowly raising his hand till Lakely could no longer shake it, “Not half as proud as I was to serve. Truly an honor to be chosen, just trying to do my duty like any soldier would.”

“Oh that’s so precious!” Lakely said, covering his mouth with his data-pad, “That’s, you know: that’s almost _just_ what the Commander said!”

“Oooooh. _Is_ it now?”

“Sure is!” Lakely grinned.

“Well,” Kaidan managed to sneak a glance back at Shepard, placidly smiling up at Kaidan and the nurse, back ramrod straight, “I appreciate everything you’ve done for the Commander. The crew of the Normandy was very worried about him, and I’m sure they’d all like to thank you themselves when they visit.” Lakely gasped audibly and stepped up to Kaidan,

“Do you… they’ll be coming to _visit?_ ”

“Soon as they’re able, would’ve come today but we didn’t want to overwhelm the Commander.”

“Oh my god. Umm… of course, I—just like you—heh, just doing what any good medical professional would do, really! Honestly it’s just absolute luck on my part, just total dumb luck, that Ms. Lawson selected me to be the Commander’s personal nurse.”

“Speaking of,” Shepard said wryly from behind Kaidan, “How’d you convince ‘Ms. Lawson’ to let you come in? My next check up’s not for another hour.”

“Um, I may have told her that she was urgently needed on the Main Level. Say, Major Alenko,” Lakely said fumbling with his omnitool “I hate to be so up front, but would you mind recording a brief autograph for my wife? She collects autographs and you and Commander Shepard are our absolute—our _ab-so-lute_ —favorites.”

“And Shepard, I assume you’ve already recorded yours?” Kaidan turned quizzically to Shepard, who nodded with a gleam in his eye, “Well I’m not really sure what to say. What did you do, _Commander_?”

“Oh, here, let me play it for you,” Lakely supplied, and called up the audio file.

                “ _Hello Maria, this is Commander Shepard, and your husband is the best caregiver I’ve ever had!”_

“Oh god it’s perfect, don’t you think? I blush every time I’ve listened to it.”

“Uh huh,” Kaidan quirked an eyebrow at Shepard, who winked at him, “Makes me feel like I’m back in Zakera Ward” he mumbled.

“Would you, Major? It would mean so much!”

“Ah, okay. Sure, for your wife, Maria?”

“Oh yes please! Okay, and here we go:” a light on Lakely’s omnitool lit red and he held the interface up to Kaidan’s face abruptly.

“Maria, hello there. I’m Major Kaidan Alenko of the Alliance Navy, and I’ve just met your husband. He’s told me all about you and I’m flattered by your support for all these years. Your husband’s taken good care of someone very important to me, and I wish the two of you every happiness.” Kaidan leaned back from the interface and Lakely stared at him in naked astonishment, omni-tool blinking off, “…was that okay?”

“Little long for an autograph…” Shepard murmured with a grin, “Show-off.”

“It was… it was…” Lakely stammered, “Oh _Major_! What can I even say! Thank you so much, you don’t realize how much—“

“Nurse Lakely, there you are,” came Miranda’s icy voice at the door, “I was expecting you to be at your station, because that’s where you’re supposed to be. I never would have dreamed you would be interrupting the Commander while he has a guest.”

“Ms. Lawson I… I’m so sorry I was just—“

“—particularly with how many patients are currently under your care. And even though the hospital’s staff is stretched thin I have no doubt I could find someone to replace you on this floor if Commander’s Shepard’s care is putting undo strain on the rest of your workload.” Miranda finished, arms akimbo and stare boring into Lakely’s eyes.

“Oh no Ms. Lawson! I was just…”

“I had requested an update on the Commander’s status and couldn’t find you, so I just grabbed the nearest staff,” Kaidan supplied, lightly touching Lakely’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t right outside, Major, I was called away on a bit of a wild goose chase.” She said, stare still firmly locked on Lakely, “I’ll happily answer your questions now, however. Lakely. You may go.”

“Ummm… yes ma’am should I—“

“Shepard’s check-up isn’t for another hour. Come back then.”

 “Yes ma’am.” And with that he slunk out of the room. Miranda rolled her eyes, and shook Kaidan’s hand.

“Good to see you again, Major. No need to defend Lakely.”

Kaidan chuckled, “Guy looked like he was going to piss his pants right here, what’ve you been doing to him?”

“Lakely? He’s harmless. I need to keep him thinking he’s special enough to be Shepard’s personal nurse, but also let him know he’s replaceable. It’s a good way to ensure his loyalty and discretion.”

“Is… discretion really necessary?” Kaidan asked as Miranda picked up the data-pad on her desk.

“I suppose discretion is how I’m used to operating, I don’t question it anymore. The less people know about Shepard’s present condition, the better, as far as I’m concerned.”

“You know I’m right here, don’t you?” Shepard asked.

“I’m also used to operating on a comatose Shepard,” Miranda’s lip curled into a smile.

“Uhhh,” Kaidan rubbed the back of his neck, “I’m going to just not think about that too much.”

“Same,” Shepard smirked, easing back into his pillows.

“I’m sorry again about Lakely. I hope he wasn’t…. interrupting… anything?” She asked, crossing her arms.

“I’m sure we can pick up where we left off,” Kaidan grinned, then darted his eyes to the side and his smile slipped, “Eh, Shepard?”

Shepard’s brow crinkled even as he attempted a smile, “Uh huh.”

Shepard folded his hands and Kaidan stood by. Miranda looked back and forth from one to the other and politely excused herself again.

But even after she was gone, the men just sat in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Kaidan tries his hardest to make good on his promise not to leave Shepard's side


	47. The Difference between Duty and a Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard and everyone are worse off than originally imagined.

“I’m _asking_ because I know how the Alliance works!” Miranda hissed, “I can’t afford to be so naïve!”

“How dare you,” Kaidan responded, his tone an icy counterpoint to the fire in Miranda’s words, “How dare you assume I would do anything to hurt Shepard!”

It had been 97 hours since he’d reunited with Shepard. True to his word, Kaidan had remained faithfully at Shepard’s bedside. The crew of the Normandy had all been in to visit Shepard, a few at a time, whenever Shepard felt up for more visitors than just Kaidan.

He wasn’t often in the mood. While he still had to sleep for long periods each day, his moments of wakefulness were alternately stilted cordiality and veiled anxiety. Miranda had taken to leaving the two men alone as often as possible, and had been working out of another office. Their interactions had been cordial, but today Shepard had been in a bad state: waking up with a start from a deep tranquilized sleep, shivering and sighing at the mere sight of Kaidan. Miranda and Kaidan were standing down the hall from Shepard’s room, out of earshot.

“You really expect me to believe the Alliance hasn’t briefed you on Shepard’s condition?”

“I barely _slept_ between our last jump and rushing to the hospital! If that doesn’t tell you where my loyalties lie, I’m not going to waste my time defending myself!”

“Look at it from my position, Major: I am currently the only person assigned to Shepard’s reconstruction—“

“Reconstruction!? He’s a person goddammit not some machine!”

“The parts that need _help_ are the machine parts—“

“—he’s _clearly traumatized_!” Kaidan growled, “That’s not something you fix with the flip of a switch!”

“—alright, yes! But I’ve been trying to help him _recover_ as best as I can and the Alliance has not made it easy. So you’ll forgive me if I’m a little defensive of the Commander in his present condition.” She finished, spitting the words at Kaidan in a dangerous tone. “ _I’ve_ been here for months—“

“—I got here as _fast_ as I could!” Kaidan snapped, causing an orderly to scurry back around the corner

“Obviously!” Miranda sneered. “But in that time, I’ve been turning away Alliance inquests time after time.”

“I know how you must feel about the Alliance—“

“For very good reasons!”

“—but I’m not just some Alliance puppet!”

“So the Alliance hadn’t even told you about finding Shepard?” Miranda settled her hands on her hips and glared. Kaidan almost sneered, but closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Hackett asked me if I might try to talk to Shepard about what happened on the Crucible and report back to Alliance Command.”

“I should have known,” Miranda shook her head, “And now Councilor Sparatus wants to see you?”

Kaidan nodded.

“He wouldn’t say why.”

“No doubt the Citadel Council’s as eager to hear from Shepard as the Alliance. Have you seen the Councilor yet?

“No. Not yet. I wanted to stay until Shepard got a little better…” Kaidan idly rubbed his temple.

“And the Alliance, what have you told them?”

“Nothing! I told Hackett I wasn’t going to pump Shepard for information, he told me to think about it. I haven’t had any contact with him since.”

“They’ve been pressing me for information since I took over Shepard’s reconstruct—rehabilitation.”

“But _why_?” Kaidan’s eyes narrowed, Miranda nodded.

“Did they tell you they’ve tried sneaking in while I was sleeping to question him?”

“They _what?_ Didn’t you leave some kind of—“

“—this against my adamant opposition, _obviously_. And they didn’t get in. Lakely may not have much of a backbone, but he’s got a brain.”

“Why are they so eager? There’s gotta be enough else to keep the brass occupied between the clean-up and the reconstruction,” Kaidan pressed his palm into his eye, grimacing briefly and squinting against the fluorescents, “Why can’t they just let Shepard _be_ for godssakes! What else do they…” he growled clutched his head.

“...do you know how they found Shepard?” Miranda asked softly after Kaidan’s grimace subsided, “A search and rescue team found him in London buried under rubble, close to the beam that had connected the Citadel to the city. He was barely alive. The cybernetics which should be allowing him to breathe were still offline. He shouldn’t have been able to breathe. He was so badly burned they didn’t recognize him. And his breathing and heartrate were so low, they left him to die in the triage ward.” Kaidan’s expression grew dark, but Miranda continued, “when they came back to catalogue the dead, they finally noticed he was Commander Shepard. He was still breathing, that’s when they moved him to this facility. I… found out about the discovery and pulled the right strings to be assigned here within 48 hours.”

“You were looking for him?”

Miranda nodded.

“It was… the first piece of code I wrote after the Crucible pulse. Monitored Alliance channels for any indications of Shepard’s survival.”

“I had no idea it was so bad… I wonder if that’s why…?” Kaidan began softly.

“No one knows how he got off the Citadel,” Miranda stressed, “and considering the Citadel arms have been closed since the pulse with no way to access it and no way to contact the people still inside…”

“What?”

“Since the pulse, the Citadel has been completely inaccessible. It closed, and the holes in its superstructure are patched with some sort of force field. According to specialists, the Citadel is still drawing excess energy from what’s left of the Crucible. All attempts to cut into the Citadel superstructure have been unsuccessful. The transport beam connecting it to Earth isn’t functioning as it did before.”

“They think Shepard knows how to open it?” Kaidan finished. Miranda nodded.

“I can’t imagine why else they’d want to question him so badly.” She folded her arms. “Everyone knows Shepard is responsible for ending the war, no one blames him for anything—“

“But he’s so…” Kaidan pinched his nose, sighed. “So guilty. Like… he’s afraid they’ll arrest him when he tells them what happened up there. Would they…?”

“No,” she scoffed, “That’s what makes it so odd. They don’t want to just pin a medal on him, obviously. That would wait. They’re not looking for a photo-op, because despite the resources they’ve funneled my way, we’re still stuck,” she gestured to the basement hallway around them, the old hospital equipment lining the walls. “In a place like this, with _me_ as the only one dedicated to getting his cybernetics operational. And only after I volunteered. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise what?” Kaidan stepped in.

“By the time I came in they had him on life-support, and were going to try to wake him up with stims to question him. Fortunately, Admiral Hackett’s been on my side.”

“So they want to know what happened on the Citadel so they can get it open again?”

Miranda scratched at her collarbone, let her glare slip for a moment to reveal the weariness beneath her meticulously kempt appearance.

“The effects of the Crucible pulse have caused a power vacuum. We’re still out of contacts with whole corners of the galaxy that we should have gotten through to by now. Intel is well guarded, but there’s been no news from Thessia, Kaje, several other Council systems. The Alliance doesn’t know what happened on the Crucible… to the Illusive Man either, and it makes them anxious. The Citadel Council is eager to reestablish a sense of order. They think Shepard’s the key.”

“Damn. Leave it to Shepard…”

“I’m afraid they worry about Shepard recovering before they re-establish order…” Miranda admitted in a whisper, so close to Kaidan their elbows were almost touching. “Or what he might do with the media platform he has.”

“They think Ben—err, _Shepard_ ’s gonna, what? ‘Seize power?’ Demand a parade?” Kaidan barked, “That’s not Shepard!”

“ _I_ know that and _you_ know that. But the _last_ time he saved the Citadel, the Council ratified his informal nomination for a human councilor practically overnight. It moved humanity ahead a century, politically.” She sighed, “It’s one of the reasons the Illusive Man admired him so much…”

“And the _next_ time he saved the galaxy, they threw him in jail.”

“After the Relay explosion killed 300,000 batarians,” she nodded. “Many more died in the Crucible pulse. But lives… the Council was less interested in preserving, for the most part.”

“Shepard had no choice—“ Kaidan’s back straightened.

“Yes, I know.”

“Either time.”

“You understand, now, why I’ve been so protective. And you’ll understand why I need to ask you what your intentions are with Shepard.” Miranda finished, eyes fixed on Kaidan. He breathed deeply and took a step back, letting his arms fall to his side.

“Shepard is what I care about. All I care about. I want him back on his feet, and I want him out of the politics and the wars and the fanaticism he’s been slogging through for the past 3 years. If Shepard doesn’t want to talk to the Alliance about what happened, I see no reason to cooperate with them.”

“You don’t sound much like an Alliance man, Major,” Miranda challenged.

“Shepard saved the galaxy. I think it’s about time the galaxy took care of itself for a while. I know why I joined the Alliance. And I know why I’m with Shepard.” Kaidan’s jaw popped, molars grating together, “I don’t see any reason those things can’t go together. And I wouldn’t want to be the son of a bitch that challenges that idea.”

“I hope that you remember that when you’re running whatever errand the Council has you on, _Spectre_ Alenko.”

“And what’s your stake in this, Miranda?” Kaidan asked, shaking his head.

“My stake? If what you’ve told me is true, we have one thing in common: my ‘stake’ in this is protecting Commander Shepard.”

“From the Alliance? From the Council?”

“From both. I worked for Cerberus, and while the Illusive Man ended up indoctrinated, there were cells that were doing good work. Cerberus may have been a morally gray organization, Major, but the only thing they promised was autonomy to talented people and a commitment to the long view. That’s more than I can say for the Alliance. I prefer when the organizations I work for don’t mince any words about being ethically complicated.”

“Do you _really_ believe they’d hurt Shepard to find out what happened inside the Crucible?”

“No. But I know better than anyone that keeping some secrets can save your life.” Miranda shifted, crossed her arms.

“…yeah. In this case I think maybe you’re right. I’ve been asking Shepard about the Citadel…”

“…and?”

“He hasn’t mentioned much. Shepard isn’t the kind to keep secrets… not… well. I didn’t think he would keep secrets from me. But if I don’t know, I can’t help him.”

“Maybe that’s for the best, Kaidan,” Miranda said at last, turning on her heel down the hall as Kaidan followed, “Sometimes dragging up the past only leads to more suffering.”

“Sometimes it’s the only way to heal.”

“I’m sure that must be true for _somebody_ ,” she said, a note of sarcasm in her voice. “It’s a big galaxy, after all.”

“…he’s afraid of me, for some reason.”

“He _loves_ you,” she dismissed. “You’re the only thing he could talk about for more than five minutes.”

“I know he loves me,” he swallowed, nodded to himself. “But something, since I’ve been back. He’s afraid of me too. I should have been there for him… and I wasn’t.”

“I suppose I can only assume you know Shepard better than I do, all I ever did was rebuild him from scratch.” Miranda murmured the last bit, but Kaidan remained silent. When they returned to the room, Nurse Lakely was chatting away with Shepard, who cast a pleading look at the two.

“Oh! Major Alenko! Ms. Lawson. I wasn’t dawdling, I promise, just dropping off this box like you requested Ms. Lawson! I’ll be going now…” Lakely said quickly and began scuttling to the exit.

“Actually, Shepard, did you want Lakely to take a look at your ears while he’s here?” Kaidan asked.

Shepard stiffened.

“Hm? Oh it’d be no problem, something the matter with your ears, Commander?” Lakely said.

Miranda’s eyes darted between Kaidan and Shepard.

“No. They’re fine,” Shepard answered quickly.

“You said you heard something before?” Kaidan said.

“No, they’re fine.”

“I can take a quick look if you want, Commander.” Lakely stepped closer.

“I… figured it might be the cybernetics you said—“

“No,” Shepard snapped when Lakely took another step closer, “Thank you but I’m fine.”

Kaidan raised an eyebrow.

“Couldn’t hurt, Commander?” Lakely smiled.

“Lakely,” Miranda stepped up and placed a hand on the nurse’s shoulder, “That will be all. Shepard’s hearing is just fine and you have rounds.”

There was an uncomfortable beat of silence until Lakely finally winced slightly under Miranda’s grip, and bid the three farewell, racing out the door. Miranda herself cast one more warning look at Kaidan before gathering up some data-pads and leaving without another word.

“Shepard… are you alright?” Kaidan began, coming over to stand by Shepard’s bedside. Shepard chuckled.

“You’ve been asking me that a lot lately.”

“You’ve been distracted, I keep seeing you turn your head like you’re hearing something, said that the cybernetics for your senses have been on the fritz, but you won’t have Lakely take a look at it?”

“It’s nothing. I’m fine,” Shepard said tersely. “What’s in the box?”

Kaidan frowned and stared another moment, but eventually gathered up the box Lakely had brought. He pulled his chair up to Shepard’s bed and plopped the box down on the edge of the mattress. Shepard craned a bit over the box to have a look.

“Looks like it’s your personals you had on you in the triage ward,” Kaidan smiled, drawing out the scorched N7 tags, which rattled lightly together, “There they are. Not MIA after all.”

Shepard smiled when Kaidan placed the tags in his hands, feeling the metal between his fingertips.

“You know you’re still listed as my next of kin, right?” Shepard murmured, but Kaidan reached over and thumbed the ring threaded through the chain, hanging between the two tags.

“EDI’s Unity Ring survived the whole ordeal too, huh?”

“Yeah…”

“I’m glad. That you have something to remember her by.”

Shepard simply nodded face carefully neutral. Kaidan pulled out a pistol, flecked with blood. Not Shepard’s standard weapon. It looked as if it had the remains of burned skin cells clinging to the handle. Shepard’s right hand unconsciously clenched, massaging the burn scar on his palm against the sheets. It was an older model—pre-geth incursion. No heat-sink. Kaidan checked the chamber, removed the ammo block and placed it on the bed.

Next, there was a data-pad, Kaidan read aloud:

_“’Commander Shepard, please note that the remaining fragments of your armor and your uniform are being stored for you in a secure locker. They’re pretty useless anymore, but god forbid someone sell the ‘actual armor of Commander Shepard’ on the extranet without you getting a cut of the profits, eh?’”_

The last item in the box was a small, flat rectangle.

“This… is this Javik’s? I think I saw this in his room on the Normandy.”

Shepard’s eyes were still on the gun sitting beside his knee.

“He gave it to me in London. Right before the final push. It’s called an Echo Shard. It’s recorded the memories of millennia of Protheans. He told me to take it and add to it.”

“Add to it? …and it can… replay these memories?”

“Javik seems to be able to, nothing happens when I touch it. He mentioned that maybe someday scientists would figure out how to access it, and have all kinds of information on the Protheans.” Shepard said, fingering the pistol and staring at the mingling of different dark spatters of blood along the barrel. He picked up the ammo block.

“This is a pretty personal gift! I can’t believe Javik would part with something like that…”

“He said he wouldn’t be needing it anymore,” Shepard said flatly, wincing as the gun fit into the scars on his palm, “With the war over, he wanted to join his squad in the Cronian Nebula.”

“So, kill himself?” Kaidan blinked, transfixed by the subtle artifact.

“I think he felt that his purpose was fulfilled. That he’d done everything he needed to do.” Shepard’s hand tightened around the grip. He fit the ammo block back into the hilt.

 Kaidan looked up, dropped the Echo Shard back into the box and slowly put both hands around the barrel of the pistol, easing it away from Shepard. Ben met Kaidan gaze, and he began to tremble.

“Just… feels good… to have it in my hand…” Shepard stuttered, eyes becoming glassy, “Makes me feel useful again… that’s all,” he swallowed hard, “that’s all…”

Kaidan swept the box off the bed and leaned over to embrace Shepard as he began to breathe shallowly into Kaidan’s chest, clutching his arms around him.

“Ben, hey. I’m here for you.”

“Kaidan, I don’t know what to do. The voices…”

“What voices, Ben? You can tell me…”

“It’s like there’s voices or… not. But there should be? Voices in my head that don’t know what to say. Or like there’s thoughts I’m supposed to be having that I… can’t have anymore.” Shepard’s hands were wrapped around Kaidan’s collar, hoarsely whispering into his ear.

“How long has this been going on?”

“Since I woke up, but it’s been getting worse the longer I’m awake. It feels… like Leviathan in my mind… it feels almost like that. I can’t talk to any Alliance personnel, I’m afraid I’m…”

“Indoctrinated,” Kaidan finished, face hard, pulling Shepard into him more tightly. Shepard nodded into his shoulder.

“I don’t know. At Cronos… finding out I was dead… now to be here in the hospital while they ‘reboot’ me one system at a time. To meet my own clone. And on the Citadel… the Illusive Man… I don’t know who I am anymore. The choice I made…” his breathing hitched and it took him several panicked breaths to calm down.

“Shh. It’s alright Shepard, I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know. You’re my anchor, Kaidan. But if you knew the things I did… if I’m indoctrinated…” He stifled a hoarse sob.

“You’re _not,_ Shepard.”

“If I am, there’s no way to counteract it. We’ve seen it all the time.”

“Don’t think like that Shepard. No matter what, I’m here with you.”

“How could you be, though?” Shepard whispered, “There’d be nothing to do. I wouldn’t be the Shepard you remembered, anyway. Like Benezia… like how many people we’ve killed? I just… wouldn’t be your Ben anymore.”

Kaidan’s omni-tool bleeped loudly: a priority message. Shepard eased back onto the bed and turned his face away from Kaidan.

“You should take that. I think I’ll just sleep for a while.” Shepard swallowed, eyes staring at the wall rather than closing.

Kaidan waited another moment before stepping out into the hallway.

Atop an extensive list of ignored messages from the Alliance control, Admiral Hackett, and Councilor Sparatus, sat an urgent message from the Councilor, essentially demanding an immediate meeting. Unlike his previous cryptic messages, this one announced that Kaidan’s help was needed at once to help prevent a second galactic war.

Kaidan read the message several times. He looked back through the door, Shepard was still staring at the wall—as impassive as he’d ever been. Silent as a statue. Thudding his head against the wall, Kaidan swallowed a weary sigh before responding that he would be heading there at once.

He ducked in to say goodbye to Shepard and made for the elevator. Only once he got there did he turn back around.

Kaidan came silently back into Shepard’s room, though the other man didn’t acknowledge him entering any more than he acknowledged him leaving. So Kaidan sat in silence as well for a long time until Ben was snoring fast asleep.

On his way out of the room, Kaidan reached into the box, wordlessly removing the Echo Shard and sliding it into his pocket.

++

 “Major Alenko,” Sparatus looked over the top of his console when Kaidan walked into the office, “It’s gratifying to see you alive.”

“Councilor,” Kaidan replied curtly.

“Please forgive the accommodations,” Sparatus remarked, indicating the tiny office with a sweep of his hand, “The Systems Alliance has been gracious enough to accommodate me while the Citadel is inaccessible, but unfortunately with the other members of the Council out of contact, I don’t quite have enough work to do to merit a grander office.”

The turian councilor gestured to a chair in front of his desk. Kaidan looked at the chair for a moment, but remained standing. Still, Sparatus stared, hand outstretched to the chair while Kaidan stood defiant. Finally, he sighed and leaned back in his own chair, steepling his fingers and crossing one leg over the other.

“I wish we could chat Major, but unfortunately we’re dealing with a rather urgent situation.”

“I don’t believe we’ve ever ‘chatted’, Councilor,” Kaidan replied softly.

“Yes, well.” Sparatus cleared his throat, “Probably best we don’t start then.”

“If you say.”

The two men stared for another moment, Kaidan posture erect though exhausted, eyes boring into Sparatus.

“What can I do for you, Councilor?”  

“We have a problem we need you to take care of—“

“Respectfully, Councilor, find someone else.”

“What?” Sparatus leaned his elbows onto the desk, his voice raising, “Major Alenko, are you or are you not still a Council Spectre?”

“Y’know that’s a great question, Councilor. With the Citadel locked off, every world in the galaxy still reeling, rebuilding. I don’t really know _how_ I fit in anymore. One thing I do know is that I have things I need to take care of here on Earth. Important things.”

“This hardly sounds like the honor-bound Major Kaidan Alenko that Udina recommended for Spectre status!” Sparatus scoffed,  “This is no time to play at defiance, Major! The war is almost won—“

“The war _is_ won!” Kaidan took a step forward. Sparatus’ mandibles quaked for a moment and he sighed.

“I’ll be frank then, _Spectre_ Alenko. The war is not won. You must know the state of the galaxy now that the Reapers are gone. From your own Spectre reports, it’s obvious you understand the cost—the aftershocks—of war better than the ‘any old soldier’ routine you play at! In this tumultuous time, Council Spectres are needed more than ever!”

“So you called me here to renew my loyalty to my role as Council Spectre?” Kaidan jeered.

“No. I have a mission of the utmost importance.”

“There are other Spectres—“

“Fewer than you think, Major.” Sparatus rose to his feet and crossed to the other side of the desk, “Most were killed in the war effort. Many are missing in action, we believe many are still out of contact on the Citadel. And it’s _you_ I need, Major.”

“Why is that?” Kaidan’s stare was intense, not moving as Sparatus stepped up, the turian looming over him.

“The Normandy. Your experience with… the objective. And your character, Major. The Council has not forgotten who protected us from Cerberus during Udina’s coup. You were the only officer who thought to evacuate us. Your quick thinking and connection with Shepard saved my life that day.”

“And yet you _didn’t_ trust Shepard,” Kaidan fumed.

“…No. I did not.”

“Almost four years ago— _four years_ —Shepard handed you the evidence on a silver platter. But you had to play politics.” He pointed out the window at the ruined skyline.

“Major, you are addressing a member of the—“

“All this. We knew. _You_ knew.”

“I am not solely responsible for the decisions of a collective—“

“Do you know what it’s like to serve on a vessel where every crewman under you knows the truth about the Reapers, has seen what they can do long before the invasion. Watch them struggle alone against that enemy while the Council is doing nothing to protect the galaxy, to protect their _families?_ And do you know what it’s like to watch those same subordinates, those friends, lose the people they love? Having to keep them from asking the ‘what ifs’? ‘What if’ the Council had listened to Shepard the first time? ‘What if’ the Council had supported the Crucible project sooner? Can you even imagine how many people I’ve begged to stop thinking like that when there’s no damn reason every single one of them shouldn’t be marching into your office right now to demand justice? How hard it is to keep them focused on the _mission_ when their homeworlds are being ripped to shreds and no one did a damn thing to prepare?”

“We acted on the information we had at the time…”

“Then I get asked to be a Spectre. And that just leaves me thinking about all the ‘what ifs’ myself.”

“My world is in far worse shape than yours, Major Alenko,” Sparatus seethed softly, “Don’t patronize me by assuming I haven’t deeply considered the mistakes of my office.”

“Consider it _harder_!” Kaidan barked. “And now Shepard, the man you didn’t believe, the man who stopped the Reapers and saved all of us, is in a hospital room in _the basement_ ,” Kaidan’s voice quivered, “And he’s…” Kaidan swallowed a noise in his throat, jaw shut tight.

“…Major. Consider this mission the first step in atoning for the… ‘mistakes’” Sparatus crooked his fingers around the word, “which the council has made in regards to the war. Now that the Reapers are gone, it will once again come to the _politicians_ to ensure the stability men like you and Commander Shepard have fought for. Bu as always, there are some things we simply cannot do. You are a Council Spectre, Major Alenko. You are the Spectre for this mission. We cannot change the past. We must move forward.”

“We’re always told that,” Kaidan swallowed, eyes still fiery, staring up into the turians with a defiant glare. “Always told it’s time to march forward before we ever take time to understand what’s happened. I want to _understand_. I can’t change what’s happened. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to move before I understand it. And I think I’m entitled.”

“That’s a luxury of time we can’t afford.”

“It never is,” Kaidan spat.

Sparatus took a step back, turned to look out the window at the crumbling city.

“What is it you want me to do?” Kaidan said quietly. Sparatus stared off for another moment before the Councilor returned to his console and called up some images.

“If I remember correctly, Major, you were on Despoina when Shepard enlisted the help of the beings called ‘Leviathan’?”

“That’s right.”

“The Leviathan’s natural ability to manipulate sapient species was a huge asset to the war effort. A coalition of operatives from several worlds volunteered to transport Leviathan control artefacts to key positions in Reaper territory. The Leviathan managed to break the control the Reapers held on a number of Collectors, bringing them to our side. Furthermore, the control artefacts and the Reapers they enthralled helped us hold key positions on many worlds including Thessia and Palaven.”

Kaidan’s eyes narrowed at the holographic representation of the control orb.

“And now that the Reapers are gone…?” He said. Sparatus nodded gravely.

“We still have no idea how to repair the Mass Relay system, en masse, or to open the Citadel to attempt to repair them from there. However, in the weeks since the Crucible, we have yet to establish contact with a number of regions of space we _should_ be able to contact through the available Relays. The ships we send to investigate do not report in. It wasn’t until a few days ago we discovered that several large cargo vessels stocked with thousands of Leviathan artefacts have gone missing.”

“…you believe Leviathan is what, exactly? Trying to reclaim their place in the Universe?”

“Based on your report from Despoina, that is what we believe.”

“ _My_ report?”

“Yes, where you describe what happened to the Commander in terms suspiciously resembling indoctrination. Yours is the only report on Leviathan we have.”

“And the Collectors?”

“Disappeared. A personal army, perhaps, for Leviathan. The Collectors, whatever they have been, are designed to be manipulated by indoctrination. The organic enthrallment Leviathan uses seems to be much the same.”

“But Leviathan can’t possibly be prepared for that! We know exactly where they are, they wouldn’t attempt full-scale galactic war.”

“And neither are we prepared for another one. The vessels we’ve sent as envoys to Despoina have not communicated with us in three weeks.”

Kaidan paced over to the window, folding his arms over his chest. Sparatus sat back at his desk. In the distance, a crane demolished the remaining ruins of an old church.

“So,” Kaidan said a moment later, his back to Sparatus, eyes fixed on the controlled demolition, “What do you expect one Spectre to do?”

“The Normandy’s stealth technology will still allow it to avoid whatever Collector vessels are serving as sentinels around Despoina.”

“So I sneak onto the hiding place of the galaxy’s first apex race. And then what?” Kaidan asked quietly. Sparatus pulled his chair in, straightening the items on his desk.

“And then, Major, you stop another galactic war. By any means necessary.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Saying goodbye again.


	48. The Difference between a Soldier and a Weapon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan and Shepard have one last 'idle' conversation before Kaidan announces he has to leave again...

Kaidan had sat by Shepard’s bedside for a long time, occasionally opening his log from the journey home, only to close it almost immediately each time and watch Shepard sleep. When Ben managed to turn on his side, away from Kaidan’s view, Kaidan would pull out a data-pad and try to read. This never lasted long either. He attempted to help Miranda with Shepard’s VI code, but this frustrated them both.

When Shepard was awake, the two would talk, sometimes all three would carry on about their adventure chasing Saren, or Miranda would give her perspective on the mission against the Collectors.

“So wait a minute,” Miranda poured herself a cup of water, “The Normandy just _happened_ to get sent to handle a ship full of L2 biotic extremists?”

“We were the fastest ship,” Shepard’s smile was weak, but steady. The conversation was going better than most.

“Not to mention Shepard’s superior diplomatic skills,” Kaidan still managed to tease, despite the dark circles under his eyes. There was a bitter note buried under his jest.

“I know all about Shepard’s ‘diplomacy,’” she eased back onto her desk with a smile. “You forget, I’ve read all about your little side jaunts while chasing Saren.”

“So you know!”

“I know you blew up a 75,000 year old Prothean ruin.”

Before Shepard could open his mouth, Kaidan grabbed his arm protectively.

“We _blew up_ a geth drop ship that was invading a colony!” Then he added quickly when Shepard opened his mouth again: “Actually, we just blew up the docking hooks, the ship falling… uh… did the rest.”

“Subtle,” Miranda’s lip twitched.

“Never subtle,” Shepard coughed out another laugh.

“Got the job done,” Kaidan shrugged, trading looks with Shepard. Shepard’s eyes clouded over at the phrase, and Kaidan hurried on, tapping Shepard’s shoulder. “Plenty of other ruins on Feros, huh?”

Shepard looked up, one eyebrow crooked and mouth pulled tight.

“That’s not what I remember you saying at the time.”

“Oh really?”

“When we climbed back in the Mako, you said,” Shepard squinted, “’It’s a shame…’ or was it ‘it’s a pity’? No, you said: ‘Look at all this! Fifty thousand years and it’s still beautiful—‘ or maybe you said impressive?” Shepard shook his head, “And then ‘I guess you’ve gotta colonize somewhere, just a shame the old has to…’ umm, ‘just a pity it has to cover up all this.’”

“What a lovely sentiment, Major,” Miranda smirked.

Kaidan was giving Shepard a look.

“Guess I had… trouble keeping my mind on the mission, huh?”

“No!” Shepard shook his head as much as he was able, “Even while we were racing back to Zhou’s Hope you still found time notice the surroundings.”

“…I did, huh?”

“You always do.”

Kaidan couldn’t meet Shepard’s eye for long, the palms of his hands sweaty. The way Ben beamed belied the weakness with which he’d spent the past few hours of the conversation. Miranda looked back forth between the two as the silence grew long.

“Was that why Admiral Hackett ‘just happened’ to assign Normandy to that L2 biotic uprising?” She asked. “Having Kaidan on board?”

Kaidan gave a mirthless huff.

“I doubt it. Doubt Hackett even knew I was _on_ the Normandy back then, not to mention an L2.”

“That’s why I _took_ you on the mission,” Shepard nodded.

“Aww,” Kaidan forced a little smirk onto his face. “I thought it was just cuz you liked me.”

“Never leave the ship without a biotic,” Miranda winked.

“No, not the L2 thing,” Shepard shook his head. “I knew you’d see the situation for what it was. You were going to be my moral center on that ship. And you were. I knew that the biotics would be a huge threat, and I knew I wanted to save as many lives as possible,” Shepard’s voice grew softer, his eyes falling a bit out of focus. “But I knew you would know… where the line was.”

Miranda made something like an indulgent hum, but Kaidan’s laugh was a fragile croak of a sound.

“I don’t know where the line is, Shepard.”

“Yes. You do. And you always see… beautiful things, in the dark.”

“Beautiful things, huh?” Kaidan clasped and unclasped his hands. Shepard’s gaze fell when Kaidan could not meet his eye.

“…tell me abut Noveria?” Miranda rushed in.

“Ugh, rachni.” Kaidan motioned for Miranda to pass him the pitcher of water, then began filling a cup for Shepard. He held the cup to Ben’s lips and place one hand gently behind his head to hold him steady while Shepard sipped from the cup, swirled it around in his mouth, and spit it back out into a separate cup Kaidan offered him.

“Thanks,” Ben smiled up at him, wetting his lips with his tongue. “They’re our allies now. Who would have thought?”

“Probably because you saved their whole species,” Kaidan sat back down, sipping down the rest of the water he’d offered to Shepard.

“Yeah, well…” Shepard lightly touched the coarse sheet of his mattress, drawing back his hand as if he’d been cut. “You win some, you lose some…”

Miranda narrowed her eyes.

“Um, I’ve never been to Noveria. Is the corporate intrigue really as bad as everyone says?”

“Worse, I’d say,” Kaidan chuckled, poured himself more water. When he held the cup up to Shepard, Ben waved it away. “What was that administrator’s name? Am… Ambolean?”

“Anolean,” Shepard answered.

“Anoleis,” Miranda corrected, waggling her eyebrows deviously. “I’ve read the files.”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Shepard frowned. “Didn’t feel guilty at all putting that guy away.”

“That _crazy_ biotic lady everyone was going on about!” Kaidan suddenly interjected, “Remember her? Oh man, she was a feisty one. Comes out of nowhere while we’re doing our investigation, makes like she’s gonna ‘tear Shepard to pieces’ or something like that,” he wiped a thumb beneath his grin, “I’ve never seen anyone go down so fast.”

Miranda turned to Shepard with a gracious smile, and it took him a moment to realize it was his turn to add to the memory.

“Oh, yeah, umm,” he bunched up the blanket beneath his fingers, “She tried hitting you with that warp field, and it just bounced off your barrier. But it was an unknown tactical situation, I thought she was as powerful as she was bragging. Or, I didn’t want to take any chances. Second the field hit you, I thought you were dead. By the time I realized you were twice the biotic she was…”

“She was _gone,_ ” Kaidan laughed. Shepard only shrugged.

“So Kaidan,” Miranda had a habit of holding up her data-pad, as if at any moment she could just dive into coding and leave the two to reminisce alone. “What did you find _beautiful_ and _inspiring_ on Noveria?”

“Nothing,” Kaidan sipped at his water.

“That’s not true,” Shepard tried to reach out to him, but his arm was too shakey. “You said it was incredible to see so many different species working together, even if they were all cheating each other blind.” Shepard smiled, “And you said ‘It’s amazing what…’ um… something about the storms.”

“Did I say that?” Kaidan swallowed, eyebrows bunching up over his nose. “All I remember is… being cold all the time. Coldest I’ve ever been in my life.”

“You think _Noveria_ ’s cold,” Miranda added, “Try mech salvage on Onturiens: gravity too high to wear a conventional hard-suit, nothing between you and the wind but a thermal-layer.”

“Despoina…” Shepard said softly. “After I met Leviathan…”

The three were silent for a long moment before Kaidan hesitantly took Shepard’s hand.

“But we got you warmed up, remember?” He whispered so low that Miranda raised her data-pad and immersed herself in coding.

“…we laughed a lot more, back then,” Shepard watched his hand in Kaidan’s. “On Noveria, Feros.”

“We kissed a lot less,” Kaidan brought Shepard’s knuckles to his lips.

“I wish we would have had more time together before…” he gestured weakly to the hospital bed.

“We’ve got time now,” Kaidan’s gaze fell to his omni-tool arm, the subtle beep of another message from Councilor Sparatus. Neither of them looked up when Miranda ‘received an urgent signal’ and hurried from the room.

“There you go,” Ben whispered, “Trying to find the beauty in all this. But… I don’t think I’m worth it, this time, Kaidan.”

It was where all their conversations had ended up, lately. Whenever someone accidentally mentioned EDI or the geth, Shepard grew melancholy, Miranda left the two alone, Shepard would swear he was not worthy of the attention given him, and he and Kaidan would trade platitudes until Ben dozed off.

Unlike most days, Kaidan actually opened his logs and began a new entry:

> _Crew prepping Normandy for immediate departure. Told Adams to have ship ready to go, but to do a full system’s check. Full check not necessary for departure procedures, especially with ship’s performance on way home. Extra time will give crew time to adjust to leaving Earth again, hopefully get negative morale worked out before we leave atmo._

He looked up at the sleeping Shepard, the subtle chirp of the monitors marking truer time than the clock on the wall.

> _Also allows more time with Shepard. Debating whether to tell him about departure. News of Leviathan stresses Shepard, do not want to be source of stress. Having encountered indications of Leviathan in previous jumps on journey back to Sol, will rely on these for additional intel. Shepard been reticent to talk about incident on Despoina, would like advice before negotiating. Do not want Shepard to see my anxiety. Will only make matters worse for him. Can’t let him see. Need to be strong for him and for the crew. Can’t ask him. Would help me cope, but can’t ask. Still—_

He minimized his entry and pinched the bridge of his nose. A moment later he called up one of his logs from a month ago:

> _While resupplying on Utoz-ma’at, encountered mercenary gang having taken over local colony’s city center. All supplies tightly controlled under warlord’s oversight. Colonists begged for aid. Wiped out one enemy settlement from orbit. Ground team used sewer entrance to access administration building. Fought to warlord’s chamber. After refusing to surrender, warlord was gunned down in the ensuing fire-fight. Rest of the mercenaries did not surrender, instead crashing through the gates into the city. Fifteen civilians killed in the battle that followed. Colony freed and secured, we collected our supplies and made for Ma’atan Relay._

And another:

> _Encountered a second mysterious freighter in orbit around 74X-Gabon today: orbit too high for rapid discharge of drive core static. Refused hails and requests to dock, much like the freighter encountered three weeks ago. Alliance registry indicates freighter was meant to resupply the war-effort near Dekuuna. No firm speculation on why orbit was not maximized for static discharge._
> 
> _Have further considered three derelict Reapers. Have not thought of use. Could over-sized drive cores be activated to get Normandy back to Earth using the Reapers’ much-faster FTL? Could remove eezo from drive core to barter for goods?_

In fact, the three Reapers had become something of a theme in his Spartan log entries:

> _…collateral damage from the retaliatory fire includes three civilians._
> 
> _Reaper FTL much too large for any application of it to be applied in the Normandy, even with extensive overhaul._

And

> _…eventually resolved tensions between batarian and hanar refugees, no other species survived the outbreak._
> 
> _Reaper cyber-warfare suites obviously deleted with Crucible wave, though all hardware still technically functional, thanks to code Traynor has developed._

And

> _…haywire mechs destroyed four refugee transports fleeing the scene before groundteam was able to subdue the scientist responsible for replacing his consciousness for the colony’s VI terraformers._
> 
> _The massive eezo core and outrageous travel speed remain the most operable aspects of a derelict Reaper for formulating a weapon._

The more he read, the more Kaidan’s posture sank into his chair, the fewer sips he took of his water. After watching Shepard with glassy eyes for a few moments, he searched the word ‘Noveria’ in his past records.

Several results emerged, including mentions in a couple letters to his father, but he opened his log and began to read.

> _Man, am I exhausted! It’s not every day you find yourself fighting for your life out in the snow like that. And the Mako’s either cold as a witch’s tit or blazing so hot I’d swear the core was about to melt-down. Which, given how much use I had to put that canon to today, might not have been that big of a stretch._
> 
> _Practically threw up in my helmet again. You’d think with all the snow it’d be harder for the Commander to drive like a maniac. Oh well._
> 
> _I’m frustrated with the lack of progress we’ve made towards catching Saren—but that’s probably the exhaustion talking. We’ve been going hard for weeks now, and it doesn’t show any sign of slowing down. But we caught a good lead today. We’re getting things done, and it’s all thanks to the Commander._
> 
> _And, you know, I wouldn’t want to work on Noveria and I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live here. But when you’re inside and warm and watching that snow blow out the window, it’s actually not half bad. I mean, it’s no curled-up-on-a-bear-skin-rug-with-your-sweetheart-next-to-the-fire-while-the-blizzard-howls-outside, but it brings up a little bit of the same feeling. Except more alien, which you have to expect._
> 
> _So I guess the biggest shame in all this is all the civilians that got brought into it. How many dock workers died because of Benezia’s geth? It’s not fair, really. Or those soldiers, they were just following orders. Bad orders, yeah. And they should know better. But it’s just too bad. Honorable people are hard to come by in this place, but it’s terrible to know the lengths Saren will go to._

He couldn’t read any more, and closed the file, teeth grinding together and glassy-eyed.

++

He’d dozed off.

Kaidan’s omni-tool bleeped: another unanswered message from Admiral Hackett regarding Kaidan’s assessment of Shepard’s emotional well-being. It was getting late, and Joker had signaled the Normandy was three hours from launch readiness.

He’d deleted the log he was writing, and the piece of Reaper code he’d been writing when he dozed off was still open on his lap in a data-pad.  

He watched Shepard breathe for a long time.

He stood to leave.

He sat back down.

He breathed too heavily, then he didn’t breathe at all.

He stood.

He sat.

And he watched Shepard.

“Shepard?” He said softly. Shepard roused slowly.

“Kaidan?” Shepard’s voice was gravelly, “Hey… look who’s… here.”

“Shepard… I…” Kaidan scooted to the edge of his chair, laying his head down on the bed, “I have to go away for a little bit. There’s an urgent mission, the Council… well… Councilor Sparatus… he’s… uhh,” Shepard placed a hand on Kaidan’s head, softly stroking his neck, “I’m going to be gone for a while.”

Shepard was silent for a moment.

“What?” his voice cracked.

“I said I wouldn’t, Ben. And… I’m sorry—“

“Please don’t leave, Kaidan,” Shepard’s voice quavered, but already his body was sagging into his mattress.

“There’s a mission…” Kaidan’s voice stuck in his throat this time. “It has to be… it has to be the Normandy. It has to be me. I don’t trust anyone else to do… what needs to be done… to keep you safe. Please, I’m so sorry. If there were any other way…”

Shepard’s monitors slowed once again, his ragged breaths smoothing. When he spoke again, his voice was touched with sympathy.

“I understand, Kaidan. Shh, is everything alright?” Kaidan looked up and placed his elbows on the mattress to support his head, running fingers through his hair.

“We’ve lost contact with all the operatives that were working with Leviathan.”

That made Shepard’s spine stiffen.

“Leviathan? They’re trying to… seize power?”

“It looks like maybe that’s what’s going on. I’ve been sent to negotiate… I guess.”

Shepard went pale and seized Kaidan’s hand in both of his.

“Kaidan… please don’t go. It’s dangerous. I can’t lose you.”

“It’s alright, Ben. I… I have a plan,” Kaidan fingered the data-pad perched on his knee.

“…I don’t deserve you here, Kaidan,” Shepard swallowed hard. “But promise me you’ll come back?”

Kaidan touched his face, lips curling together against his teeth and eyes wet.

“I can’t promise that, Ben. But… whatever it takes to hold you again…”

“They’re dangerous, Kaidan. Leviathan. Be careful. The way they get inside your mind…” Shepard grimaced, eyes searching, “they probe around inside your head. I can’t even describe the feeling!”

“…you had those nightmares, and you still get cold, don’t you?” Kaidan wiped his eyes, and Shepard nodded.

“The probing… it’s more invasive than just the enthrallment… don’t let them in your head for any longer than you have to. Have a backup plan. We didn’t have one when we were first on Despoina. That could’ve been the end of us right there.”

“But it wasn’t, Ben, because you were there,” Kaidan’s smile was heavy, “That silver tongue of yours has talked us out of more fights than… aww hell.” He slumped forward into Shepard’s hand again, “I don’t know how I’m going to do this. How did we get here, huh?”

“No Kaidan, no. You’re the right man for this job. I wish there were someone else. But if anyone can solve this peacefully, it’s you. I believe in you, and the whole galaxy believes in you. And you deserve that trust in a way… in a way I don’t…” Shepard’s eyes darted around the room for a moment.

“Ben, why are you talking like this?” Kaidan leaned back, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head at Shepard, “You know it should be you on this mission and not me. It should be us. We’re a team, Ben—“

Shepard doubled over with pain, darting his eyes around the room, softly muttered to himself even as Kaidan bolted to his feet and tried to hold his shoulders, “No… no I’m fine…”

“The _hell_ you are Shepard! I’m calling a doctor!”

“I don’t need a doctor,” they wrestled with the comms until Shepard had practically pulled himself off the bed trying to control Kaidan’s arms, “Please! _Please._ It’s just… thinking about Despoina… about Leviathan…”

“Shepard what the hell is going on?” Kaidan breathed, and Shepard pulled him in until he was whispering in Kaidan’s ear.

“There are… voices in my head. Or… there should be voices? It feels like the Prothean beacon except it’s not just trying transmit information, it’s trying to control me… or…” Shepard’s tone grew even quieter, “On the Citadel, the Illusive Man, he had the Cerberus indoctrination technology… and then… the little boy… the Intelligence…”

Kaidan’s expression fell, but he took Shepard in his arms and kissed his forehead, steely faced.

“Tell me, Ben.”

“It’s like there’s always something on the edge of my mind, like with Leviathan, with the Illusive Man, on the Crucible when I had to choose… when I chose… because…” he started as Kaidan held him tighter, “Am I indoctrinated?” he breathed, almost inaudibly.

“Ben,” Kaidan said as softly, “I… I was afraid of something like this, honestly.” He held Shepard close.

“There’s no cure.” Shepard said, voice icy, “We’ve seen indoctrinated people, Kaidan. They don’t ever stop being indoctrinated.”

“B-but the Reapers are gone,” Kaidan whispered, “It doesn’t make sense!”

“I don’t know, but the more of my VIs get brought back online, the more it feels like my head is… full of thoughts that aren’t mine. But it’s not like it was with Leviathan. There’s no direction, the thoughts are just everywhere.”

“We’ll find a way to help you, Shepard, I swear I’m gonna find something—“

“No,” Shepard sighed hoarsely, “After what happened on the Crucible… I’m fine with this. I’m not afraid. After what I did…”

“What happened, Ben?” Kaidan asked, but Shepard buried his face in his shoulder, “Why won’t you tell me? I love you, Ben! Just—don’t shut me out!”

“I will tell you… just… right now, I need you like this. It’s selfish, I know. Just like Virmire, but I can’t let go of you yet. I’m not strong enough for that. Just come back to me.”

Shepard winced again and Kaidan laid him back on the bed, his hand hovering over the call-button. He sighed miserably and instead moved to gently turn up Shepard’s sedative.

“I’ll be back Ben. I just need to take care of this and then… then I won’t go away anymore.”

“Just,” Shepard’s eyelids were fluttering, but his gaze was intense as ever as he curled a fist in Kaidan’s shirt, “Be careful with Leviathan. Be careful.”

Shepard’s hand slid off his arm and Kaidan caught his hand, covering it with his own, spoke softly:

“Ben, I thought… dammit Ben. I’m not ready to lose you, okay? I’ve lost you too many times already and… just hold on, Ben. The galaxy still needs you. And I need you. I don’t know what happened up there, but you’re stronger than this. You’re stronger than you know. I love you. Keep fighting.”

Shepard’s breathing normalized as he slipped into a deep sleep. The ‘message waiting’ cue on Kaidan’s omni-tool continued to ping in the silence. Kaidan slumped back into his chair.

After a few minutes, the door slid open and Miranda walked in.

“Major, my apologies. It’s almost time for Shepard’s check-up and I thought it’d be better if I interrupt anything personal rather than Nurse Lakely,” she smiled wryly. Kaidan did not look up.

“Please, just call me Kaidan.”

“Oh, alright then.” Miranda stepped forward, inspecting the hardware while keeping Kaidan in her periphery, “You’ve turned up his sedative?”

“He was in a lot of pain,” he reached up and smoothed a hand over Shepard’s hair, “How is he really doing, Miranda?”

“It’s hard to say really,” Miranda answered gently, though her tone bore an edge of defensiveness, “There are some systems that shouldn’t be functioning without his cybernetic implants that have somehow started working again. But… some of those systems are starting to degrade again, namely his lungs. I’ve had to recode them twice in the last week to keep up with the degradation. His visual acuity has fallen by 30% since this time last week. I haven’t been able to repair the connections to his legs either.”

“…he didn’t tell me that.”

“I suspect he doesn’t want to worry you… or doesn’t want to appear weak.”

“Shepard’s had to be strong, had to put on a strong face for his crew,” Kaidan stared at Shepard’s still form, “But I thought we—him and me—had gotten past that.”

“A lot has happened.”

“I know. And I can’t help him because he… he won’t tell me what happened on the damn Citadel. He’s just not himself, Miranda.”

“…Despite my best efforts,” Miranda intoned sullenly. Kaidan looked up.

“I’m sorry that I was so abrasive to you the other day: about the Council. That was disrespectful. I let my worry about Shepard and my feelings about Cerberus blind me from everything you’ve done to save Shepard’s life. I’m sorry.”

Miranda’s eyes shot up, and she crossed her arms across her chest, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

“You have no reason to apologize, Major. Kaidan.”

“Why here, Miranda? You could be directing a top level project somewhere instead of coding in the hospital basement.”

“I suspect there will be plenty of top-level projects to direct when I’m finished here,” Miranda smiled, “And… I owe Shepard. I suppose I owe you too, for saving my sister. For getting me free of my past, my secrets. And besides, Shepard needs someone helping him heal who doesn’t have ulterior motives… couldn’t trust the Alliance coders to do that. Who knows what they would’ve programmed into him.”

“You told Shepard the Alliance didn’t have anyone to spare?”

“A lie. Or a half-truth, which is the best kind of lie. You wouldn’t believe how many doctors I’ve had to go through just to get one who wasn’t in the Alliance’s pocket. It was better for Shepard to think the people he saved couldn’t spare a few extra programmers to rehabilitate him than to believe that those same people were fixing him up just to pump him for the key to the Citadel.”

“I see.” Kaidan continued to stare at Shepard’s chest, gently rising and falling as the new VI code struggled to operate his diaphragm at capacity, “Secrets.”

“Kaidan,” Miranda said, lightly scratching her collarbone, “Shepard’s a survivor. But he’s an absolute amateur at keeping secrets. I’ve had secrets my whole life, so many I almost don’t know where they end, sometimes. Sometimes we keep secrets because it’s the only way to survive. Sometimes we keep secrets because it’s the only way to live the life we want to live, or so we think.”

“I know a little about that,” Kaidan chuckled ruefully.

“Shepard’s never had to keep a secret to survive. But he’s never had much to live for, either, to hear him tell it. Just know that he trusts you more than even he knows.”

“When we were on Earth at the end,” Kaidan said after a moment, “I really thought we were both done for. Ben told me not to think like that, that he was going to be waiting for me when it was all over. It’s the kind of thing you’d say to any soldier on the front lines like that. But the way he said it… made me believe it, y’know? I didn’t ever imagine I’d come back to…” he turned his eyes back to Shepard, the scarred face, the tubes supplying him with nutrients, “to Shepard so changed. I didn’t want this for him. I love him. So much. But if this is the price he paid to make good on his promise… I would rather he have let me die with him in London.”

“He’ll get better.”

“Will he really?” Kaidan raised an eyebrow, accusing.

“Well… some of the organic systems may be failing, but a large percentage of his body was entirely cybernetic before. There’s no reason to assume that once I get everything tweaked it won’t all work again…”

“But mentally?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Positive thoughts, or whatever, those are supposed to make his scars heal. Supposed to help his organic tissues regenerate?”

“Yes.”

“So. If those things aren’t healing…”

Miranda didn’t answer.

“Uh huh,” Kaidan sighed, “It doesn’t seem right to think about ‘fair’ at a time like this, with everything that’s happened. But I just wish he could catch a break, is all. I wish something would be easy for once.”

“For both of you.” Miranda said softly, placing a hand on Kaidan’s shoulder, “Don’t give up. He needs you now more than ever.”

“Thanks. I’m… going away for a while. A mission for the Council. Will you take care of him while I’m away?”

“Of course, Kaidan.”

“I need to pay a little visit to Leviathan. Maybe I’ll even get some answers…”

“Leviathan?” Miranda started, “I’ve… read some intel… Major, if you even get into that system… there’s no way Leviathan will ever let you leave! They’ll down your shuttle, they’ll enthrall you and send you right back to Alliance HQ to assassinate someone, or worse!”

“I know. But the Reapers almost won. The whole galaxy is crippled. The only thing ever keeping Leviathan from seizing control was the Reapers, they’d rather survive than rule. But now that they don’t have to hide anymore?”

“It’s a suicide mission!”

“I know,” Kaidan buried his face in his hands, “But… if the Councilor’s right… if we have the chance to stop a war… I’ve got to try.”

“I don’t know if you’re heroic or stupid. But you’re certainly crazy,” Miranda scoffed, touching Kaidan’s shoulder as she turned to leave, “Come back soon.”

Once she was gone, Kaidan leaned over to softly kiss between the open scars on Shepard’s forehead. Before he left, he felt in his pocket, removing the Echo Shard and turning it over in his hands. With a final look back at Ben, he slid the Shard back into his pocket and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Re-recruiting Javik.


	49. The Difference between Purpose and Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan has left Shepard once again. But Shepard is still on his mind, and he goes to convince Javik to once again come along.

 “Joker,” Kaidan’s voice still rattled with the emotion he had suppressed in the elevator up to street level. He had hidden himself in a small alcove on one side of the hospital, out of the way of the sounds of demolition up the street. “How’re we doing on getting the Normandy ready for take-off?”

“ _Good, Major. We’re ready to go the minute you’re aboard. Gang’s all here, except for Javik.”_

“…only Javik’s not there? Tali and Garrus? Liara?”

_“One big, happy family._ ”

“Tali was booking the first flight out, Garrus was going with her… Liara…”

_“Yeah, well,”_ Joker sounded like he might be laughing with someone over his shoulder on the Normandy’s bridge. _“Guess something more important came up.”_

“Good, good…” Kaidan allowed himself a smile and a sigh with the comm signal still open, “Um, how’s everyone seem, Joker?”

_“No one knows what we’re going in for just yet, but spirits seem high. If we can maybe hurry home I don’t think anyone’ll complain. Sir.”_

“Noted. I don’t plan to be gone any longer than we absolutely have to, sound good to you?”

_“Aye.”_

“Alright then,” Kaidan straightened his uniform. “Now, can you tell me where Javik is?”

++

The last Prothean stood, gazing up the street as the military hardware continued to clear away the rubble. He wasn’t terribly far from the hospital, and he wasn’t terribly far from the dock where Normandy was currently stationed.

He’d spent the day wandering the streets up and down, walking through bombed-out buildings and trying to find high-ground. From the highest vista he could, he would take in the city, the way the morning shadows made every building look like a dead and ruined husk, the way the afternoon sun made the city look almost restored, the way the evening light turned the city into a sleeping cemetery. Another hour, another vantage point. The workers didn’t seem to notice him as he stalked about.

Today, he had been patrolling the streets at ground level, walking amongst the shadows cast by the buildings. Leaning against sheered columns and watching the blue sky like it was a vid-screen broadcasting a message. This was how Kaidan found him.

“Javik,” Kaidan said quietly, standing next to him, “Good morning. Didn’t expect to see you in London. Come to visit Shepard?”

“No. I have said all I need to say to the Commander.” He stared, tilting his head as explosive charges brought down a ruined row of flats. A dust cloud swept down the street behind the echo of the blast, and the Alliance soldiers nearby hooted and high-fived as the machines moved in to begin carting away the debris.

“…uh huh.” Kaidan rubbed the back of his neck.

“It is strange to see your people with so much hope.” He kept his eyes trained on the clean-up crew, a spring in each of their steps as they waved the movers through. “Seeing the humans rebuilding their civilization, though there is much to rebuild, they still move with confidence.”

“Yeah. I guess no matter what’s happened, people finally feel like there’s gonna be a tomorrow.”

“I never experienced this in my cycle. Every new settlement we built, we understood it was built for one purpose: retribution against the Reapers. I have never lived in a world where survival and vengeance did not fuel every action, every thought.” Javik’s voice was softer than usual.

“That’s hard to imagine. The past year has been bad enough for me. I can’t imagine spending my whole life like that.”

“And you will never have to. Nor will your children.” Javik looked from the rubble into the sky, where the closed Citadel was gleaming white in orbit, “It is a shame. I would have liked to have seen the Citadel one last time.”

Kaidan raised an eyebrow.

“I bet they’ll get it opened up any day now, if you stick around.”

“No,” it was nearly a whisper.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Javik, what brings you to London?”

“I have come to acquire transport to the Cronian nebula. My work in this cycle is done, I will find the graves of my men, and we will be together at last, and at peace.”

“…what’s special about the Cronian nebula?”

“The Commander did not tell you?”

“No.” Kaidan smiled, “Things told to Shepard are… in confidence. He’s not like that. Neither am I.”

Javik turned, eight pupils expanding, focused on Kaidan in the shade of the street.

“In the Cronian nebula, I tracked down my indoctrinated crew,” he whispered. “I killed them. My friends, my soldiers, died that day. It is their grave, and it will be mine.”

“I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do to keep you around, instead?”

“No. Many have already attempted to dissuade me. They do not understand. There is a hanar transport undergoing repairs.” He frowned, “The journey will be… frustrating. But they will bear me anywhere I desire to go.”

“I know Liara was… hoping to learn more about the Prothean culture.”

“Yes. Dr. T’soni also would not understand. So I have not told her.” He smiled wryly, “My people ruled an empire unmatched in this cycle. The glory of the Protheans… I lived only in the ruins of it. And now it is gone forever. It is as it should be. This world belongs to your people, and you have proved yourselves.”

“We couldn’t have done it without the races who came before.”

“Of course, nor could we. Once the Protheans bent the galaxy to our whims, but the galaxy grows, and it changes. The universe is a wild thing, even my people were only servants of a pattern.”

“The galaxy is rebuilding, Javik. Y’know, maybe there’s a new purpose for you in this cycle? You have a lot to offer these people.”

He turned back to watch down the street, there was loud music coming from the work-site. A man on an earth-mover was pantomiming playing a guitar.

“I have wondered what peace would be like. I have known only war. In my cycle, even had I been born before the Reapers invaded, I still would have been fighting the empire’s wars. Backwater to backwater, subduing primitives. I was never meant to know peace the way these men will.”

“We’re ‘warriors,’ eh?” Kaidan stepped up beside him, watched the worker turn their music up. Javik nodded. “I think maybe… I’d like to be something else, once in a while.”

“The decision is not ours to make,” Javik huffed, “Our kind are necessary, and our people have made our path for us.”

“Maybe,” Kaidan shrugged. “I chose to sign up.”

“And I chose to serve… in the way I did,” Javik nodded. “My men _chose_ to serve with me. All choices are made with limited options, and yet… this is the path I have chosen. And I have chosen to be with my men in death.”

“You have more options that just that, this time.”

“No. I had much to offer to the world to which I belonged. A world that is dead forever now that the Reapers are defeated. It is not an occasion to be sad, my people, the souls of eons are avenged. I envy their peace. I go to join them. This world and the hope it offers to your people is meant for them. My cycle will pass with me.” He said, and Kaidan chuckled.

He and Kaidan stood staring into the sky for a long moment, only shuffling to the side as a troop transport crawled up the street.

“Javik, I have a favor to ask you.” Kaidan said as they stepped into the shadow of the bombed out buildings lining the street. Javik blinked as he turned to look at Kaidan.

“Finally, you have decided to request a lesson in how to actualize your biotic potential! Unfortunately, since you are so old, I’m afraid my lessons would not take.”

“What? My biotics are—“ Kaidan took a deep breath, and folded his arms, “Nevermind, I don’t wanna… actually, hold up a second: what’s _wrong_ with my biotics?”

“Your abilities are strong, but you cannot create a field capable of sustained damage—“

“No. No I shouldn’t have gotten drawn into this. Never mind. Just… nevermind.”

“As you wish,” Javik shrugged, “Then I shall take the secret of the Dark Channel, pride of the Prothean military, to my grave. You probably would not have been able to master it anyhow.”

Kaidan rubbed his forehead.

“…Prothean children mastered it by the time they were—“

“Thank you, Javik.”

“Perhaps it is fitting. Though let no primitive claim the last of the Protheans did not attempt to leave a legacy.”

“ _Thank you,_ Javik.”

Kaidan rolled his eyes seeing the small curl in Javik’s lip as the two stared back up at the Citadel. Finally, Kaidan sighed.

“One of our first conversations was about my biotics,” Kaidan chuckled at last. “You told me that people were right to be afraid of me. My biotics, I mean.”

“Now that I have seen you command the Normandy,” Javik said wryly, “I am more convinced than ever. You are a terrible foe to your enemies.”

Kaidan frowned at that.

“On that shuttle ride, you also said that we were soldiers, that we never needed to worry about the aftermath…”

“A soldier always sees only the next battle. Yes.”

“Well the next battle found us. Leviathan.”

“It is not my battle.”

“I understand. What I wanted to ask was… Well. I wish I could talk you out of your plan, but I respect your decision. Once the Normandy is done with this mission, I’ll take you to the Cronian nebula.”

Javik folded his arms, “And in return?”

“In return, you’re going to help me help Shepard.”

++

Kaidan waved Javik on ahead when his omni-tool received a strange comm signal. The Normandy was at the end of a long row of starships in a makeshift dock, and the noise was tremendous.

“…hello?” Kaidan said, opening his omni-tool to investigate the signal. According to the diagnostic, there was nothing being transmitted to his comms.

“Major!” a high-pitched, distorted voice sounded through his comms.

“…Col?”

“Ah! Yes! Excellent recognition, Kaidan! Credit to your species,” Col Vedirus intoned, the sound was fragmented and somewhat hollow. “It’s good to hear a friendly voice!”

“Col, how are you transmitting this signal? My omni-tool shows no incoming transmission.”

“Been testing experimental frequencies, only way could get a signal out of the confinement field. Lucky, I suppose, that you’re in range to receive!”

“…where are you?”

“My laboratory. Bachjret Ward.”

“On the Citadel?” Kaidan pressed a finger to his ear, “How are you getting this message out? I was told the Citadel’s completely cut off!”

“Technical specifics too much to go over with what time this frequency allows. It has taken me weeks just to be able to transmit this call.”

“You should… you should contact Councilor Sparatus, people are going nuts down here trying to figure out how to reopen the Citadel.” Kaidan ducked into an alcove and busily attempted to locate how the signal was accessing his comms.

“Wanted to contact someone I could trust first,” there was a smile in Col’s voice, “And ask… if Commander Shepard was on Earth.” Kaidan’s fingers slowed for a moment.

“Yeah, he is.”

“Alive?”

“…Yes.”

There was a relieved huff of air through the comms channel.

“And… any chance you happened to pull him from the rubble and reawaken him from a death sleep with a kiss? It would make several writers here _very_ happy.”

“…what…?” Kaidan’s eyes narrowed, “No, you son of a bitch!” but next moment he chuckled softly to match the cackling coming through the comms channel, “don’t tell me there’s people actually writing about me and Shepard after all this!”

“Escaping into fantasy, a common coping mechanism,” Col chuckled, “And based on what I have been reading lately, people feel _very_ free to fantasize!”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t risk the line to send you a sample.”

“I thought time was precious?”

“Always time for a joke!”

“I’ll bet,” Kaidan swallowed, “How are you doing? How are things on the Citadel?”

“Bad, despite the fics.” Col’s tone changed drastically, his words clipped, “Though things could be worse. Councilor Valern is unharmed and has been providing a modicum of order. We’ve attempted various means to exit the Citadel. All control rooms capable of opening the Ward arms are either inaccessible or destroyed. We attempted to locate Shepard, but cannot access the Crucible hub. The whole station has suffered heavy casualties.”

“Yeah,” Kaidan grit his teeth, “I saw the explosion.”

“Loss of gravity when the Ward arms fully extended has accounted for more injuries than the Crucible’s firing sequence,” Col’s voice lowered, “Thanks to the Keepers.”

“The Keepers? What do you mean?”

“It seems the energy which powered the Crucible overloaded several major reactors throughout the Citadel,” he said, gravely, “Though it seems the entire station was designed to reroute the power transfer through non-essential conduits. Though many died in the explosions on each ward, the force was remarkably well contained. Aside from extensive damage to the Presidium, most districts did not even lose power.”

“How… is that possible?”

“The Crucible is perhaps the essential puzzle piece in what has been eluding us about our understanding of the Keepers.” The line fizzled out for a moment before Col’s voice sounded once again, “It seems that while they maintain the Citadel for the use of those who live there, they perhaps also have been reconfiguring the Citadel for many cycles to maximize the effectiveness of the Crucible interface!”

“But… then… why close the Citadel now? Why cut communication?”

“Uncertain,” Col replied, “Though they are rapidly repairing the damage. I have never seen so many Keepers. Believe they have used the genetic material delivered from Earth to exponentially increase their number.”

“Yeah, apparently they’re drawing matter from Sol.”

“Hmm, it is as we suspected. The Citadel had been drawing matter from the Widow, or so we thought, though the process was so subtle we could not detect it adequately. Though if they are preparing to correct the damage in the superstructure…” the comms line fizzled.

“Col? Can you still hear me?”

“Hmm,” another fizzle, “the Keepers must have located my signal frequency and are compensating. I will recalibrate and attempt to report to…” his voice skewed into unintelligibility, “Pity, quite a bit of work designing this modulation. Oh well, talk never wasted on you, Major Alenko! Special Tactics will continue to ‘hold the line’ up here, you take care of… —Shepard, in fact…”

The signal went dead in Kaidan’s ear, and though he sat for several minutes, there was no sound. Kaidan looked up to see the Citadel overhead and sighed, lightly tapping his head into the wall before signaling to Joker.

“Jeff, it’s Kaidan. I got held up, I’m in sight of the ship now.”

“ _Good, Alliance control isn’t granting us permission to depart, but I bet a little Spectre authority’ll clear that right up.”_

“You think that still means anything these days?” Kaidan rolled his eyes, stepped out into the street to make for the airlock.

“ _Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve stolen her…”_

“Good point.”

_“Anyway, I can break the locks no problem, and I can have us out of the system before any of the dreadnoughts in orbit even know we’re airborne. So whatever happens, we’re leaving.”_

 “Sounds good, Joker. I’ll be there in just a few minutes.”

“ _Great, and hey, Kaidan, not that I’m not glad to see everyone’s favorite defrosted super-warrior back onboard but… you couldn’t have bought him a fruit basket or something? You know, cheer him up a bit?”_

“Making trouble already, huh Joker?”

“ _He threatened to throw me out the airlock. Again.”_

“Wonder why.” Kaidan rolled his eyes. The Normandy was shimmering in the afternoon sun in dry dock.

_“Figures, I save everyone’s life again and this is the thanks I get,”_ Joker’s tone had only the faintest sound of a smile in it.

“Time to do it again, see you in a minute, Joker.”

“ _Roger. Normandy out.”_

There was a figure at the end of the docking arm, standing erect next to two cases at the entrance to the airlock: Diana Allers. She was fully made-up and dressed in her usual white dress, as if she were ready for a tight-beam special report in the dock itself.

“Diana,” Kaidan blinked when she grabbed his hand and shook. “…something I can do for you?”

“Seeing as that Lawson woman turned me away at the hospital when I tried to get in to see Commander Shepard—“

“He’s been through a lot, Diana,” Kaidan’s voice rose.

“Yeah, I wasn’t there to… needle him for the scoop—as if I’d get a chance to with the two of _you_ around.” She smoothed a crease out of the dress at her hip, “I just wanted to say hello. Get a chance to thank Shepard in person, that’s all. We didn’t talk much, and when we did it was usually for Battlespace. But he always made sure to check up on me after a dangerous mission. After my home got destroyed… I wanted to return the favor. I wanted to see that he was safe for myself.”

The Normandy’s mass effect fields came online, slowly taking over the ship’s load from the docking clamps, it made a low, throbbing noise in the air, and both turned their heads to see the ship quiver.

“I’d…” Kaidan sighed, “I’d take you in myself, Diana, but I’ve got something to take care of.”

“Oh, I’m not here to ask about that,” she waved away the notion and nodded one head at the Normandy. “…going my way, Major?”

“You found out,” Kaidan’s eyes narrowed.

“Not to worry, Major,” she turned away sheepishly. “Sam said she had to go in a hurry—don’t worry, she didn’t tell me where—she grabbed her tooth brush and her allergy pills and bolted. But it didn’t take much to put two and two together that the Normandy was lifting off. So: here I am.”

“I don’t think we’re doing anything news-worthy on this run, Diana,” Kaidan said mildly.

“If the Council’s got the Normandy taking off again after four days home, something’s going on, and…” she closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose. “I know I’m not a member of this crew, but these men and women mean a lot to me. If there story’s not over, mine’s not either.”

Kaidan stared off into the distance. The uncharacteristically blue day was blowing out as gray clouds began to dot the horizon.

“Besides, if there’s nothing news-worthy happening,” Diana smiled hesitantly, “I won’t even be in the way. Unless… there _is_ something news-worthy going on…”

“Oh, there… just might be, after all. But I hope not...” He sighed, fixed her in an intense gaze. “What’s the story, Diana? What’s the angle? How would you talk about… this?” He swung his arm wide, encompassing the demolition, the Normandy, the hospital in the distance.

“It’s…” she shrugged, chewed on her lip, “It’s hope. It’s people who have stared death in the face—some close enough to smell its breath, yeah—just getting on with life.”

“Wars are hard to win,” Kaidan murmured, “Without sacrifice. Without cutting corners.”

“Is that what you think is going to happen on _this_ mission?” Kaidan didn’t reply. “I’m not here to pass judgment on what people did. That’s for the history books, I just want to… tell it like I see it.”

“Tell it like you see it,” Kaidan smiled. “You sure about this, Diana? You don’t have a news-desk to get back to?”

She scoffed.

“Technically, I’ve been on assignment. They owe me some off-time, and I’m taking it.”

Kaidan nodded at last.

“Need help with your things?”

“As if, Major,” she laughed, grabbing her cases and striding through the airlock. Once the decon procedures were finished, she left down the gangway for the lift. The crew didn’t give her a second glance, except for Traynor, who covered her grin with her hand and all but ran to Diana in the CIC.

Kaidan turned instead into the bridge.

“Hey there, Major,” Joker greeted, craning his neck around.

“Okay Joker,” Kaidan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Patch me through, all decks.”

“…There. Go for it.”

“All hands,” Kaidan began, leaning on the back of Joker’s chair for support. “…I hope everybody got some sleep, because we’re back at it again. Yesterday, I was approached by Councilor Sparatus. Apparently, Leviathan has been enthralling ships, maybe even taking over whole planets. So they’re sending us. Who’s the oldest species in the galaxy going to see as a force to be reckoned with? The crew of the Normandy, that’s who!” There was a clamor of hooting and hollering in the CIC, “We all fought damn hard for this peace, we all sacrificed… we’ve all lost. We’ve earned it, and this time we’ve got the Council backing us—we’re gonna nip this thing in the bud before anyone else has to go through any more.” He gripped Joker’s chair tighter, his voice caught in his throat. Joker, eyes on his haptic, reached back, seized Kaidan’s wrist in a tight grip, and Kaidan found his strength. “For Shepard. Let’s go.”

Joker cut the channel and gave Kaidan’s wrist one final squeeze. Cleared his throat.

“So, plot a course for Despoina, then?”

“No. First stop is those dead Reapers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> "I'm proud of you..."


	50. The Difference between a Voice and the Echo, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan wants to know what Shepard went through. With Javik's help, he will live through Shepard's choice at the Crucible...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This section takes the cut content of Anderson and Shepard's "I'm proud of you" conversation as canon. Please watch [this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzEPBPt7zEs) of helixspiral's game beforehand? This mod is my favorite one...

After so long out among the stars, the Normandy crew had discovered the pattern by which they could predict which Relays would be operable—and with the weight of their mission spurring them on, they would be undistracted from any diversions. The irony of racing back to the very sector they had ended up in after the Crucible wave wasn’t lost on the crew, but the mere fact that they’d be arriving in a scant fraction of the time helped to convince them of the progress they’d made since the crash landing, and the optimism transferred over onto their current mission against Leviathan.

Kaidan had had only the most minor briefing with the senior staff, cordially bowing out of any further discussion of what they would do once they made contact with the enigmatic creatures. No longer needing to walk the ship to keep morale high, he spent his time in the loft, busily coding the program he had begun at Shepard’s bedside. When he was stuck on a particular facet, he would occasionally ask Traynor for help, but never showed her more than a few lines at a time.

Old rhythms were returning. The ship was back to military readiness—no sign of the improvised night-club in the shuttle bay anymore, or the strict rationing. The corridors were quiet, and the memorial wall was thronged with flowers.

Javik’s quarters in the Port Cargo Bay had been almost completely cleared out, but after just a day aboard, he had restored the climate controls and dragged a data-screen over from the other cargo bay—Diana swore she wouldn’t need it. The humidity flowed out of the room when Kaidan opened the hatch.

“Major.” Javik didn’t turn, form bent before his data-screen in the dim light. “I have been waiting. You are not having second thoughts, I hope?”

“No,” Kaidan answered softly, locking the door behind him with a wave of his omni-tool. “Just been making a plan for the mission we’re on.” He cleared his throat, “You’re sure I can’t convince you to help out? We could use your skills on this one.”

“I am only here to help you with Shepard, then you will deliver me to the Cronian nebula as you promised.” Javik answered coolly, “You still wish to know what happened to the Commander when he was aboard the Crucible?”

“Yes,” Kaidan breathed.

Javik turned, eyes narrowed.

“Do you believe that by experiencing what has traumatized the Commander you will be stronger for it?”

“No, but there’s something he’s afraid to tell me.” Kaidan placed his hands on his hips, stepped from the shadow of the door into the light. “He’s… he needs help. I don’t know how to give that to him if I don’t know what happened.”

“50,000 years ago, I would have called such sentimental curiosity weakness. Now I merely find it invasive.” Javik shook his head, “It seems I have spent too much time in this cycle.”

“Well, let’s not waste any more time then,” Kaidan reached into his pocket and retrieved the Echo Shard. Javik’s gaze fixed on the artifact immediately: the dim green glow and the smooth surface. At last, Kaidan shook him from his reverie: “So, how will this work?”

“The Echo Shard does not respond to your physiology,” Javik said cautiously, “I will touch you to establish a reading, this will act as a bridge between you and the Shard.”

“So I’ll see the memories on the Shard? Shepard’s memories?”

“Yes. Before giving the Shard to the Commander, I would never have imagined a prim—another species using it. The Echo Shard records the experiences of whoever possesses it: Shepard carried it on the final push to the transport beam, and presumably while he was aboard the Citadel.”

“And you’ll see whatever I see?” Now Kaidan stared down at the shard, turning it over in his hands as if it were a fragile piece of pottery.

“Yes, any image you see, I will also see. Though only your desires will influence the momentum of the Echo Shard. The only memories the shard will recall will be those which you direct it to.”

“I need to… think about the memory I want to watch?”

“In a manner of speaking. That Shard contains millennia of my people’s memories. Everything the holder experienced while in possession of it. When you access the Echo Shard, you will experience the events just as the one who possessed it. But you will bring your own emotions into the memory, too.” Javik stepped forward, eyes still on the Echo Shard. “The combination of the two is powerful. A moment may last an hour, or a millennium may pass in an instant.”

Kaidan stepped up and placed the Echo Shard on a crate, rubbing his hands together with a shuddering breath. Javik unfolded his arms, turned at last from the Shard to face Kaidan.

“Okay… phew… okay. How does this work, I just touch it and then…?” Kaidan looked up under furrowed brows.

Javik placed a hand on Kaidan’s shoulder, “And then you see what the Echo Shard has absorbed.”

“It’ll just start from the beginning, or…?”

“What is the beginning?” he said mildly, “This artifact has seen more beginnings and ends than we can imagine. The Echo Shard will take you to whatever memories you summon.”

“But if I don’t know what I’m looking for?”

“What you bring with you will call certain memories to the surface. The subconscious emotions you bear will resonate with the memories of those who have held the Shard. You will see… sympathetic memories. That is the price.” He sighed deeply, and admitted in a soft voice: “The price is too high for me. I will not touch the Echo Shard myself.”

“…Thanks. That’s really encouraging.”

“If you were weak, you would not have sought me out. You must continue to be strong for The Commander.”

“Alright.” Kaidan huffed a sigh and reached out without any more delay, both hands wrapping around the Echo Shard, for a moment he squinted at Javik in the dimness…

And then…

> _The Citadel, Shepard lay propped up on the floor. Poor Ben. His face was blackened and bloodied. Fresh blood. My lover is bleeding to death in a secret chamber. No one will ever find him. You’re never going to see me again, Kaidan. Shepard’s armor is cracked and melted, Kaidan feels the hole in his own side, the hot reek of blood soaking the thermal liner. He couldn’t even scream. Poor Ben is going to die if I can’t find a way to save him…_

The images were muddled, the perspective shifting.

“I can’t tell if I’m watching Shepard’s memories or… _living_ them,”

> _Anderson is nearby, dying. Like father, like son. You have to hold on, sir. You believed in me all along…_
> 
> _The earth looks beautiful, even the silent starships that break apart in jets of flame are strangely lovely, it is one of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen. It was  a world worth dying for. And I’m dying. He was dying. This was the end._
> 
> _“We did it” Shepard can’t make eye contact, doesn’t have the energy. His voice shoots through Kaidan, the pain in his side disappearing with the rush of his lover’s voice. I love you, Shepard. Hold on…_
> 
> _“Yes, we did… It’s quite a view.” Anderson respond, voice a strained rattle. You’re dying, but you can’t let Anderson die. Not now, at the end._
> 
> _“Huh, best seats in the house,” I cough, blood is filling my lungs._
> 
> _“Do you ever wonder how things would’ve been different…? How our lives would be… different if this hadn’t happened?”_
> 
> _“Sure.”_
> 
> _“I never had… a family… Shepard. Never had children,” Anderson responds._
> 
> _Like father, like son._
> 
> _“There’ll be time enough for that now.”_
> 
> _Anderson chuckles ruefully._
> 
> _“I think that ship has sailed. What about you?”_
> 
> _“Yeah. I like the sound of that. I’m not sure I’d be much good at it, though.”_
> 
> _“Sure you would. I think you’d make a great dad.”_
> 
> _Shepard’s sputtering laugh turns to a weak cough._
> 
> _“Uh huh?”_
> 
> _“Think how proud your kids would be, telling everyone their dad is Commander Shepard.”_
> 
> _“I don’t know about that… not everything I’ve done is something to be proud of…”_
> 
> _“God… feels like years since I just… sat down…”_
> 
> _“I think you earned a rest… Anderson…?_
> 
> _Anderson could only respond with a groan._
> 
> _“Stay with me.”_
> 
> _“You did good, son. You did good… I’m… proud of you…”_
> 
> _“Thank you, sir… Anderson?”_
> 
> _You’re dead, Anderson. He was dead. Slipped away like it was the civil thing to do._
> 
> _That ship has sailed. For both of us…_
> 
> _Like father,_
> 
> _Like son._
> 
> _Think of how proud your kids would be… telling everyone..._
> 
> _When this is over, I’m gonna be waiting for you—_
> 
> _I think that ship has sailed…_
> 
> _You better show up!_
> 
> _I like the sound of that… I like…_
> 
> _The sound of Ben’s voice… at its most honest when it was wavering, only certain about what he wanted when his voice was weak, like it had been that night in Shepard’s cabin where Kaidan first said “Know that I love you.”_
> 
> _No matter what happens_
> 
> _I like the sound of that…_
> 
> _When this war is over…_
> 
> _I’m dying…_
> 
> _You’re dying Ben…_
> 
> _Please._
> 
> _I’ll fight like hell for the chance…_
> 
> _Please!_
> 
> _Stay with me…_
> 
> _Don’t leave me behind…_
> 
> _Kaidan heard his own voice as a disembodied wail—_

—and the Echo Shard fell from his hands, and were it not for Javik’s arm around his waist he would have collapsed to the floor. Practically screaming, Kaidan found his level and pushed Javik away, stumbling into the wall and sliding down it, crumpling into himself with a sob.

“Ben…” he gasped into his palms “He… he wanted a family… Oh god… What am I going to do?”

Javik stood by the table at a respectful distance, his arms folded in front of him, watching the Echo Shard as if it were a snake that could strike.

 “The Shard blends the sensation of the memory and of the traveler, the past and the present become one. Was this scene the answer you seek?”

Kaidan stumbled off the balls of his feet and crashed to a sitting position against the wall.

“I… he was dying… on the Citadel… children… we had talked about a life…” He clutched his face in his hands once again.

“Remember that the Echo Shard follows your desire to the appropriate memory.” Javik stepped forward, “You don’t need to explain to me what you saw, but you should know that the memory you experienced only appeared in response to what you sought.”

“But that’s not what I _wanted_ to see. I need to see what happened to Shepard…” He shuddered again. “He mentioned a _choice_ he had to make, that’s what I need…”

“Perhaps that was your intent,” Javik said bitterly, “But you have been burying your true desires for a long time. You cannot hide them from the memories contained within Echo Shard,” Javik looked down at the discarded artifact, “I wish to see the glory of my people and the victories of my men. But I have buried the pain of their loss, and that is what the Echo Shard summons. Which is why I do not touch it.”

“I can see why,” Kaidan panted.

“It will take some time to recover, but when you are ready to try again, I will remain aboard until you find your answer.”

“I’m ready now,” Kaidan said, stumbling to his feet, grappling to grab Javik for support.

“Do not be an idiot, Major.” He caught Kaidan’s forearm, hauling him up with a sneer, “The second vision will not be as gentle as the first.”

Kaidan’s face had blanched, but he stared into Javik’s eyes, his jaw set so hard his chin quivered.

“I’m ready.”

Javik stared.

“…I should refuse.”

“His memories… they’re in there. Everything from the moment you gave him the Shard. I can know what happens— _happened_ … please. I won’t say this has to be done but… I _have_ to do this right now, Javik.”

Kaidan’s eyes, red rimmed, did not blink as Javik appraised him.

“…I will help you. It has been a long time since I could be…” Javik turned away, “Perhaps I have spent enough time as the avatar of vengeance.” He placed a hand on Kaidan’s shoulder.

Kaidan reached out for the shard again, his fingers trembling above it, his breath growing ragged before he finally grasped it—

> _“I think that ship has sailed,” Anderson said “How about you?”_
> 
> _In truth, Shepard had never imagined himself with children. No husband… no children… no house with a yard. The future had always been an unbroken stretch made up of ‘now’: whatever happened, happened. He had never had a present—a ‘now’—that he thought was worth stretching out into the future. He had always met the uncertainty of the future with indifference._
> 
> _He was a good soldier, that way. An ideal Spectre. Not for his morality, or for his skill—but because of his indifference. His inability to understand the people around him, except through parroted emotions and platitudes. Dealing with people in the ‘now’ of their lives. The future was unsafe, ‘then’ was a province of possibility where action had no place._
> 
> _But a lot had changed, and he felt it._
> 
> _“It might be nice to have somebody to live for… maybe love…” Shepard had told Kaidan…_
> 
> _“How about you?” Anderson’s question lingered in the air. I’m dying. I can barely move. Anything is possible._
> 
> _For the first time, Shepard imagined the future._
> 
> _Kaidan was at his side, they were on a porch overlooking some cold-water Pacific bay at dusk. It was a future where Kaidan had taught him how to see the beauty again through all the darkness in the galaxy. A moment made sweeter because it felt, for the first time, that Kaidan and he were seeing the same sunset, the same miracle of the everyday chemistry of the universe._
> 
> _There were children… a girl who liked Shepard a little better, and a boy who seemed to get along with Kaidan just a bit more…_
> 
> _“Yeah. I like the sound of that,” He answered Anderson._
> 
> _He was in his bed at the Citadel, Kaidan asleep at his side. He wrapped his arms around him, Kaidan’s skin was warm against his, breathing against Shepard’s fingers. The prickle of soft hairs against his lips when he kissed his neck made Shepard smile. Even the fleeting touches of his lover were so real: the smell of his hair in the darkness, the rumble in his own chest when Kaidan groaned in his sleep, sliding back into Shepard’s embrace._
> 
> _“Kaidan?” He asked into the darkness, hoping Kaidan was asleep—or perhaps hoping Kaidan was only pretending and would hear everything he was only willing to say into the silence. “I never had a family…” he whispered to a sleeping Kaidan. He didn’t know what family would look like, the men who raised him put an edge on him that other men wielded once he got to the Alliance. Certainly whatever family was, it wasn’t the sharp edge you used to cut down enemies. The idea that Kaidan could be with him for the rest of his life… that the feelings they had for one another over the years would continue to grow… that the shield Kaidan gave him could protect him from even his own, limited cynicism about his role in the universe… “I think I’d be a bad father… too serious… or too… distant. But with you there…?”_
> 
> _Anderson was before him still… “…don’t think I’d be very good at it though,” he completed his answer. But his mind drifted back to the bed on the Citadel: “Have you ever wanted to start a family, Kaidan? Maybe some time I’ll ask you… After the war.”_

Kaidan shook violently beneath Javik’s touch, “Ben! Don’t wait, Ben! Tell me what you want to tell me!”

“Major,” Javik’s voice was gentle, “You are preoccupied, you must direct the Echo Shard.”

“I’m trying, goddammit!” Kaidan cried, “It keeps coming back here… to this…”

“ _You_ continue to draw these memories. You must be honest to yourself if you would hope to see beyond.”

“I keep pushing against seeing these things… I can’t get past them… I’ve been… holding this in for so long…”

“Then do not fight it. Our memories influence our perspective on the future. The memory the Echo Shard is showing you is one of ruined possibility, that is why it resonates with you as Shepard’s life hangs in the balance. Perhaps that future can still be attained, but there are things you must see from the Echo Shard first. They are all connected.”

“Every memory fractures into more memories… I can’t hold a single vision..”

“Find where that possibility began to unravel—“

> _Javik was speaking outside the memory, but Kaidan could barely hear him, Shepard’s thoughts were in his mind again. He had told Thane once that he was glad he didn’t have the drell’s own perfect recall. Now he felt the temptation… Seeing the world through Shepard’s eyes and hearing his thoughts comforted him. In some ways, it was better than being with his lover again. Better than the broken, tortured man he had left in London…_
> 
> _But he didn’t come to be comforted._
> 
> _He came to suffer._
> 
> _The future_ must _be brighter than the past, or there was no point to his struggles._
> 
> _Cast aside ‘now.’_
> 
> _Their future was impossible unless he could help Shepard… He was never going to be with Shepard again, unless…_
> 
> _“Will it start at the beginning?”_
> 
> _“What is the beginning?”_
> 
> _The beginning. When did Shepard leave him?_
> 
> _‘Then.’_
> 
> _A Mako hovered in the air, an adrenaline augmented moment stretched into an eternity. Shepard skidded forward, the Mako crashed to the ground, nearly crushing Kaidan and Garrus but for a hair’s breadth…_
> 
> _‘I have to get Kaidan and Garrus out of here, this whole thing’s gone to shit. Protect the people you can. Protect the people you care about. Protect people. As many people… the one you love.’_
> 
> _You tried to tell me, Kaidan… that we might not be able to keep all our promises…_
> 
> _“Don’t leave me behind.”_
> 
> _Shepard didn’t want to. Watching Kaidan struggle with unconsciousness, face flecked with blood, barely supported on Garrus’ shoulder. His heart sank into his stomach, he had never wanted anything like he wanted to board the Normandy with Kaidan. Make sure he was alright, hold Kaidan until Kaidan had regained enough strength to return the embrace._
> 
> _The Normandy was the fastest, the quietest ship in the galaxy. His life was a stone-carved myth brought to life, the Normandy could fly so fast, she could escape destiny itself, and death, and Armageddon._
> 
> _It could save Kaidan. But for what?_
> 
> _Kaidan was everything. It wasn’t even that the mission came first… but in this moment the fate of the whole galaxy hung in the balance. Shepard knew he couldn’t save the universe and have Kaidan too. Maybe Kaidan knew it too._
> 
> _The only way to save Kaidan was to save the galaxy._
> 
> _“No matter what happens, know that I love you.” It was the only thing anyone had ever said that made him ready to go on. This time, saying it rather than hearing it made him that much stronger._
> 
> _“I love you too…”_

Kaidan’s hands loosened around the shard “I’m… I’m him…. What the hell?”

“You must separate yourself from the memory, human!” Javik’s tone was thick with warning, “You cannot experience the memory so closely, it will tear open your mind. You must remember who you are and why you have come.”

> _“I love you too, Shepard. Show me what happened. I’m not letting you leave me behind.”_
> 
> _The Normandy lifted off, Shepard raced for the transport beam. The last stretch to the pillar of light was rain and fire, gravel and blood. Shepard set his teeth, the air crackling with the energy of the beam, and the rain—flung horizontal—pelted him in the face. A flaming Mako careened past, a soldier stumbling out of it after it wrecked into a tree. The soldier made it less than three meters from the wreckage before collapsing, body twisted grotesquely._
> 
> _Shepard kept his eyes locked ahead, almost fearing that to look up at Harbinger would prompt the Reaper’s deadly gaze. There was a flash, and a beam of scorching white energy annihilated a soldier ahead of him, then ripped a line up the hill to meet Shepard, there was a screech of comm chatter in his ear before he heard a chopper dive out of the sky behind him into the beam. There was an explosion. Harbinger’s beam, deflected by the diving chopper, was still enough to melt through Shepard’s armor in an instant._
> 
> _Burning fuel rained around him. The carcass of an Alliance helicopter smashed to the ground, the concussion of the resulting explosion flinging Shepard forward. Ears ringing, Shepard lost consciousness before his body impacted the ground._

“Why did I leave him behind?”

> _When Shepard opened his eyes, he saw Harbinger lifting away from the surface. He grimaced when he raised his head, pain seeping out from the bruise he felt beneath his eye. The comm chatter was indistinct, and Shepard could barely hear anything anyway for the ringing in his ears. He didn’t know where his shotgun was, the Wraith… the one Kaidan gave him as a present…_
> 
> _He had gotten Kaidan a present, he should’ve given it to him before they got back to Earth. Why had they thought to wait till the war was over? He would’ve liked to have seen the look on Kaidan’s face._
> 
> _Presents… the M-11 Wraith, Kaidan had given him. It was gone, certainly melted pieces in the charred gravel surrounding the beam._
> 
> _The Wraith… no one had ever given him a present like that. It was a shame, but Shepard knew the signs in his own body: he would make it to the Citadel at any cost, but he wouldn’t make it much farther. The connective filaments that always aggravated his hip hurt worse than he had ever felt. His left arm felt like it had shards of his armor embedded in it, but his head and neck hurt too much to even turn to check. What’s more, there was an unfamiliar cold sensation below his ribs that he was certain was massive internal bleeding. A charred soldier lay to Shepard’s left, the man’s pistol wedged under Shepard’s weight. Shepard seized it to control the trembling in his hands_
> 
> _‘Grip the gun. Go to the light.’ It became Shepard’s mantra, pulling himself up from the ground while his comms rattled in his head: Hammer was dead. No one had made it to the transport beam. Regroup._
> 
> _‘Grip the gun. Go to the light.’_
> 
> _He limped for the beam, feeling his life ebbing with every step. When three husks rounded the rubble blocking his path, he lifted the gun. It was hard to raise his head enough to find a target, hard to raise his arm. The pistol was a few years old, before thermal clips were standard in Alliance hardware: it was whatever the Earth resistance could find to arm Hammer with. The sizzle of heat dissipation after each shot reminded him of Eden Prime… the first husks he ever saw._
> 
> _Kaidan had said they were an abomination. To remake living souls into something else._
> 
> _The horror in Kaidan’s tone had made him see the husks as something other than just another enemy. Something more than just the latest threat. Through Kaidan’s eyes he saw the beauty and the power in all things. Through Kaidan’s eyes he saw the horror the universe could bring._
> 
> _He was dying. But he had this. He would erase the evil. He could see it so plainly, as if Kaidan were..._
> 
> _He didn’t see the Marauder until he felt a blast shatter the joint in his shoulder. He shot the marauder dead. His steps faltered for a moment, the enormity of the pillar of the beam making his head swim when he stared into the center of it. He could hear the monstrous growling of more troops lurking in the rubble, and he tried his best to run for the light._
> 
> _‘Grab the gun. Go to the light.’_
> 
> _His crippled body was awash in brilliance, weightlessness._
> 
> _Then it was dark, leaving a red stain on his retina, and he slammed into a metal floor. The haze of unconsciousness that had been threatening to overwhelm him claimed him for a moment._
> 
> _“Shepard!”_
> 
> _His body reacted to the call, to an indistinct clamor at the back of his brain. Like voices in another room. Like a feather pressing against the base of his skull. Like the presence of Leviathan but… harsher, more insistent. Adversarial._
> 
> _“Shepard!”_
> 
> _Shepard groaned._
> 
> _“Anderson, you up here too?”_
> 
> _“Followed you up, but we didn’t’ come up in the same place…” Anderson groaned, “at least I don’t think we did. What’s your surrounding look like?” He asked, Shepard gasped, pain shooting through his ribs, “You okay?”_
> 
> _Shepard struggled to stand, grip tightening around his pistol._
> 
> _‘Grip the gun.’ There was no light…_
> 
> _‘Grip the gun. Find a light.’_
> 
> _His stomach lurched, the pain in his side where he felt so much internal bleeding twisting his insides. For a moment he thought his synthetic hip was not even connected anymore, he was so unsteady, the shooting sensation so intense._
> 
> _“I feel like death, but I’m moving, it’s dark. There’s human remains scattered.”_
> 
> _“Sounds familiar, I’m in a dark hallway, reminds me of your description of the Collector base”_
> 
> _There were Keepers in the tunnel…_

“Keepers?” Kaidan murmured, eyes opening for a moment, “They were… helping harvest humans?”

> _“Makes sense”_
> 
> _“You think they’re making a Reaper in here?”_
> 
> _“…they’re helping to build a Reaper?” Shepard’s thoughts and Kaidan’s thoughts merged._

“Major,” Javik’s voice was like a distant rumble of thunder, “You have allowed your connection with Shepard to drown you in his memory…”

> _Why is he calling me ‘Major’? Whose voice is that?_
> 
> _There are Keepers in the tunnel._
> 
> _The Keepers had rearranged the Citadel so the energy from the Crucible would reach maximum efficiency…_
> 
> _This memory… I’m in Kaidan’s mind… talking to his friend, the salarian Spectre… the number of Keepers has increased since the war…_
> 
> _No._
> 
> _I am Kaidan._
> 
> _I have to get to Anderson…_
> 
> _No. Shepard has to get to Anderson_
> 
> _I have to get to Shepard! He’s dying in the next room…_
> 
> _No, that memory comes later… Shepard_ will _die…_
> 
> _Shepard will die…_
> 
> _No!_
> 
> _After Anderson dies…_
> 
> _Anderson! I have to get to Anderson!_
> 
> _“Sure, they round them up on Earth, then send the people up here to be processed,” Shepard croaked out._
> 
> _“Goddamn abomination! I’m going to keep moving. The sooner we blow these bastards back to hell the better!” Anderson’s voice rang out of his comms in the stillness._
> 
> _The tunnel was stacked with bodies, but it didn’t smell like death. Shepard was too haggard to notice, but Kaidan did, finally willing himself to continue forward despite Javik’s voice in a distant corner of his mind._
> 
> _Shepard was weak, barely standing. Only his forward momentum kept him moving one foot in front of the other. He stopped to look at one of the Keepers and nearly keeled over, head swimming and eyes clouding over._
> 
> _“The tubes don’t go on forever. But where the hell are we?” Anderson’s voice pulled him upright just as he stumbled into a Keeper._
> 
> _“Yeah, doesn’t look like any part of the Citadel I’ve been to…” Shepard answered weakly._
> 
> _“Whoa!”_
> 
> _“Anderson?”_
> 
> _“One of the walls here just realigned itself! The place is shifting, changing. There’s a chasm here, and more hallways like the one I was in…”_
> 
> _For a moment, Shepard lost his sense of direction. Corpses surrounded him on both sides. Behind him was the transport beam. The only way to go was into the darkness._
> 
> _‘Grip the gun. Find a light.’_
> 
> _To find Anderson._
> 
> _“I think I’m near an exit…” Anderson said through the comms._
> 
> _Kaidan had never seen Shepard like this. He knew Shepard’s body ached almost constantly: his back, his hip. After hours spent on some war-torn world, when the lights turned off in his cabin… Shepard’s body would slump, he’d stumble to the bed, afraid to sleep because of the nightmares, yet still eager to lay his body down. To heal._
> 
> _Shepard had been weak for him only a handful of times—the final night they spent together before the assault of Cronos station, Shepard standing in front of the fish tank shivering, letting Kaidan wrap his arms around him. Not stumbling to the bed, but stumbling right into Kaidan’s arms. Giving his broken body to Kaidan like it was a blessed lost cause…_
> 
> _But as he limped through the dark tunnels, walls dripping, Shepard’s mind was blank. Partly trying to keep himself from vomiting, mostly focused on moving deeper into the darkness. Anderson was ahead. This was a dangerous place. Shepard knew the feel of mortal wounds. He would not survive. Anderson must survive._
> 
> _Forward._
> 
> _‘Grip the gun. Into the darkness.’_

Kaidan’s body shook under Javik’s hand. His body tensed sharply and slackened. He and Javik collapsed to the ground.

>                 _‘Grip the gun. Into the darkness.’_
> 
> _The strange tingle persisted at the base of Shepard’s skull, the cold spider that had made its home in the hollow behind his throat. So much like Leviathan, but more malevolent._
> 
> _‘Grip the gun… into the darkness…’_
> 
> _The darkness has been breached…_
> 
> _Suddenly the wall in front of Shepard split open, bright light pouring in from across an expansive and living chasm._
> 
> _It was like Anderson had said: it was as if the Citadel were rearranging itself within to encourage Shepard forward to… somewhere. There was nowhere else to go. Anderson was getting too far ahead. Shepard didn’t like feeling like he was being goaded somewhere. He needed an escape route, he had to find a way to get Anderson out of here…_
> 
> _Anderson had found a control panel. The sliding components within the mechanical chasm shifted and his comms with Anderson went dead._
> 
> _“Dammit!” he hissed, the pain in his hips momentarily disappearing as he stumbled down a ramp and slowly crossed up to the room he had seen, the bright light._
> 
> _‘Grip the gun. Go to the light.’_
> 
> _Always the gun._
> 
> _His body almost gave out on the ascent up the other side of the ramp. It sounded like the causeway was shifting behind him, as if there were light footsteps on his six, but just then, a silhouette appeared ahead and Shepard raised his gun._
> 
> _The moment before he pulled the trigger, Anderson’s shape materialized, hunched over an interface. The circuit board pattern of the closed Ward arms laced around the open chamber. Relieved, Shepard limped forward._
> 
> _All at once, Anderson’s body went rigid._
> 
> _The spider living in Shepard’s skull spread its web over his consciousness._
> 
> _Kaidan felt the cold sensation, the scattering of Shepard’s individual thoughts. His mind filled with a coursing desire to serve, to submit. Shepard resisted, but the effort left his limbs frozen, then moving on their own, pointing the gun at a stunned Anderson, himself seemingly frozen._
> 
> _A face appeared in Shepard’s mind, the way Leviathan had appeared. But this face…_
> 
> _The Illusive Man._
> 
> _Then he himself was in the chamber. Kaidan felt Shepard’s horror spike, even as Kaidan’s own rage overwhelmed him._
> 
> _The Illusive Man had learned to seize control of Shepard’s mind._
> 
> _Indoctrination._
> 
> _Shepard could not move. His mind was beyond saving now, even if his body had not been mortally wounded. Death was certain. The galaxy was doomed while the twisted shell of the Illusive Man walked free in the Citadel._
> 
> _Save Anderson._
> 
> _The vision of the Echo Shard became hideously warped as the Illusive Man tightened his grip on Shepard’s mind. The pain throbbing in Shepard’s head was nearly unbearable, but to clutch his head, to relax control over his gun hand for a single moment…_
> 
> _Every word the Illusive Man spoke pierced deep into Shepard’s mind, each idea fractured off. Beneath the pain of resistance, the comforting reassurance of voices from the past, telling him the Illusive Man spoke the truth._
> 
> _“Control is the only means to survival.”_
> 
> _Leviathan had said the Reapers were designed as servants, just as the geth, the ‘servants of the people.’ The Reapers themselves… servants to the pattern that was the constant cycle of synthetics turning on the organics that created them. Should he destroy the Reapers today, what would prevent that same cycle from happening? But with the power of the Reapers…_
> 
> _Wasn’t it true? Mankind was afraid of the Relays when they were discovered. But there had been people brave enough, understanding and discerning enough to brave the adventure of discovery._
> 
> _People like Kaidan. Brave, adventurous Kaidan._
> 
> _‘Can’t wait to get back out there!’ He heard his lover’s voice in his mind._
> 
> _“We must harness their ability to control.”_
> 
> _Shepard shook his head willing his arm to go down, but his aim merely wavered for a moment, barrel pointed squarely at Anderson’s head. Save Anderson!_
> 
> _“We destroy them, or they destroy us!” Anderson grunted, his own body betraying him to the Illusive Man’s control. Surely though, it would be a waste of such power if it was true the Crucible could assume control of the Reapers…_
> 
> _No._
> 
> _Not ready. Kaidan had said humanity may not be ready for its Council seat._
> 
> _Kaidan had been wrong. Look what humanity had accomplished? And Kaidan could admit he was wrong, so too must Shepard._
> 
> _Everything has its proper time, its proper order._
> 
> _Without Shepard, the galaxy would already be under Reaper control. And still Kaidan hadn’t trusted him on Horizon._
> 
> _Everything had to grow._
> 
> _Shepard fought to speak:_
> 
> _“You’re playing with things you don’t understand, power you shouldn’t be able to use!” Shepard felt a fear creep into him for the first time. The indoctrination held his joints stiff when the pain of his injuries should have long ago buckled him. Worse, his choices were not his own._
> 
> _“We’re not ready!” he urged again, but the Illusive Man was becoming enraged._
> 
> _“No! This is the way humanity_ must _evolve.” The Illusive Man turned on his heel._
> 
> _Humanity must evolve. Everything had to grow._
> 
> _The Reapers had been shepherding organic civilization for millions of years. They were being studied, each iteration being designed to provide a new solution to an old, ineffable equation. Like the Tenth Street Reds had guided Shepard for their purpose. Had sharpened the edge on him. The power of the Reapers…_
> 
> _A surge went through Shepard’s mind._
> 
> _“Look at what they can do!” the Illusive Man closed his fist and Shepard’s finger squeezed the trigger, the shot ripping through Anderson’s stomach, his eyes flung open. The Illusive Man smiled grimly, satisfied in his demonstration, accepting of the cost._
> 
> _Save Anderson…_
> 
> _“I see what they did to you!” Shepard spat, body quivering in rage. Anderson was the closest thing Shepard had to a father. He realized it only now, as blood bubbled out of Anderson’s side, soaking his fatigues. His mentor, the man who believed in him through all, who did not wield him like a blade, was dying…_
> 
> _But this wasn’t about personal feelings. Couldn’t be. Wasn’t that why he had left Kaidan behind? Decided he would not return from the Citadel? Isn’t that why he had accepted the hero worship all these years? Because believing in him united humanity, united the galaxy. Existence was on the line._
> 
> _The story of Shepard be damned!_
> 
> _“It’s about things so much bigger than all of us!” The Illusive Man finished the thought in his mind._
> 
> _“Don’t listen to him!” Anderson groaned._
> 
> _“Who will you listen to, Shepard?” The Illusive Man approached again, “An old soldier stuck in his ways? Only able to see the world through the barrel of a gun?”_
> 
> _Old soldiers…_
> 
> _Guess we’re old soldiers, huh Shepard?_
> 
> _He had told Kaidan he was only good at destroying things, never putting them back together. He was too much a soldier. Watching people die. Stone faced while children were slaughtered by thresher maws, batarian slavers, Collectors, Reapers…_
> 
> _Children._
> 
> _He had told Kaidan… if there was a way to no longer be a soldier…_
> 
> _But that was all he was. No, Kaidan had told him he was more._
> 
> _The Illusive Man told him he was more._
> 
> _No one had to die. Shepard could put all the pieces back in place. Shepard could be a healer._
> 
> _No. How many more would die if the Illusive Man lost control? The Illusive Man’s indoctrination was twisting his thoughts. The Reapers had twisted the Illusive Man. He was lost._
> 
> _Anderson, Kaidan. His crew. Without those affections, all Shepard had was death. Should he fail today, those he cared about would die. The grip on his mind loosened._
> 
> _“Are you willing to bet humanity’s existence on it?” Shepard shouted as the Illusive Man gripped his own head, “You can’t!_ They _won’t let you!”_
> 
> _“Listen to yourself!” Anderson’s voice was thick with disdain, “You’re indoctrinated!”_
> 
> _Indoctrinated._
> 
> _Indoctrinated._
> 
> _“Do you think power like this comes easy?” The Illusive Man roared, “There are sacrifices!”_
> 
> _“You’ve sacrificed too much!”_
> 
> _Too much. You could sacrifice too much. Shepard was prepared to sacrifice his own life, he had always been. Shepard begged now, feeling his life ebbing, watching as Anderson’s fatigues became black with blood. Begged the Illusive Man to let them free, they would take care of the Reapers. The Illusive Man shook his head, drew Anderson’s weapon, calmed his demeanor, brandished the pistol._
> 
> _“You would undo everything I’ve accomplished,” he said calmly._
> 
> _“Because of you, humanity is already undone! They have the Citadel, they have us fighting each other instead of fighting them.”_
> 
> _They controlled the Illusive Man. Theirs was the true control, the true power. They must be stopped. The Illusive Man stumbled, tried to break the Reapers hold. They owned him. The only sacrifice he could now make was his own life. Shepard knew it grimly. He knew what indoctrination could do, that it never went away._
> 
> _“They’re too strong!” The Illusive Man cried._
> 
> _“You’re stronger,” Shepard urged, knowing what must happen, “Don’t let them control you.”_
> 
> _The Illusive Man raised the gun to his temple._
> 
> _“I… tried, Shepard.”_
> 
> _An epitaph, and his blood spattered the floor._
> 
> _There was a grunt next to his ear, as of someone in a great effort. He felt something in his hand. Not a gun. A smooth piece of metal. It was the Echo Shard._
> 
> _No, that was still tucked next to his chest beneath his armor._
> 
> _There was another grunt._

Kaidan opened his eyes, stared down at the Echo Shard, bloody. When he released his grip, he started at the way the Shard had cut into his palm. He’d been clutching it so tightly, the edge had slashed all the way across his hand.

Javik had wrenched his hand off Kaidan’s shoulder, and sat grumbling against the wall.

“Anderson! I have to save him!” Kaidan cried, struggling to his feet as the Echo Shard clattered to the deck.

“Major! Major Kaidan Alenko!” Javik shouted when Kaidan struggled against his hold. Kaidan blinked.

“…Javik?”

“Major.” Javik’s voice was thick with disdain.

“I’m alright now,” he winced, touching his forehead and leaving a bloody mark from the cut in his palm, “Hell of a headache… but I’m fine.”

“I will not be destroyed by your obsession before I can rejoin my men in the Cronian Nebula!” Javik spat.

“What?” Kaidan turned, startled, “I just… I’m not used to that kind of experience.”

“You almost lost yourself to the Echo Shard, and me along with you!”

“I’m trying to understand—“

“Do not patronize me, human! Do you think I do not understand obsession? For fifty-thousand years I have dreamed of destroying the Reapers, of avenging my people. But you are obsessing over what might have been between you and the Commander,” Javik looked at Kaidan with a kind of derision, “Are you satisfied now? What has happened to Shepard is unspeakable, but you have your answer: these things cannot be. Your life with Shepard as you wished it cannot be. You have lost them to the Reapers. Those responsible for the Reapers, the Leviathan cowards, now threaten your people with enslavement! Do not let what you have lost cloud your mission: avenge yourself on Leviathan!”

“I don’t want revenge,” Kaidan grit his teeth.

“Then it is fortunate that you will be able to avenge yourself under the guise of protecting the galaxy,” Javik replied dryly.

“Shepard brought them into the war. They’re ready to hear what I have to say.”

“For their survival. For their ego. Now will they listen to you? A lesser species?” Javik leaned back against the wall, “You must do what is necessary. There is great hatred in you, Major, and a sense of justice. I have seen it in your past. You understand what must be done to protect those around you.”

“There’s a right way and a wrong way to do everything,” Kaidan mumbled, eyes fixed on his bleeding hand.

“There is one in your past, a turian, who you killed when he threatened a woman you loved. You told the Commander you did not regret his death, only that you had been the one to kill him. You can no longer afford to be so naïve! You were right to kill him. You would have exterminated the geth machines to stop them. And,” Javik leaned in, leering, “I felt the satisfaction in you when the indoctrinated human in the Echo Shard died. You were prepared to kill him yourself. When you saw him die, your only _regret_ was that it had not been you pulling the trigger.”

“M-maybe you’re right,” Kaidan’s voice was low and dangerous, “The Illusive Man was a threat to everyone.”

“I agree. Like the Reapers. Like Leviathan. Do not hesitate, you are a soldier, like your father. Like Shepard. The warriors in all of history watch you. You know what you must do. I have seen the plan in your mind.”

“…a soldier...” Kaidan gingerly lifted the Echo Shard, running his clean thumb over the drying blood on one edge, “just ‘an old soldier, stuck in his ways’…”

“A proud soldier.”

“Like my father, huh?”

“Like your father.”

“Heh,” Kaidan’s smile was joyless, “I still need to see the rest of Shepard’s memory.”

“Have you heard nothing I’ve said, Major? The Echo Shard—“

“Javik,” Kaidan pleaded, “Will you help me see the rest of the memory or not?”

“…First I will need something to eat,” he sighed finally, “It is exhausting to be so involved in another person’s obsession.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Part 2 - Kaidan comes closer to what he is looking for...


	51. The Difference between a Voice and the Echo, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan watches Shepard through the Echo Shard: all alone, with a decision to make.

 

> _The Crucible was docked, the Citadel arms were open. The view was beautiful._
> 
> _“Do you ever wonder how things would’ve been different…? How our lives would be… different if this hadn’t happened?”_

Kaidan watched Admiral Anderson struggle to breathe, propped up on the floor of some unknown chamber of the Citadel. Javik’s voice drifted through his mind.

“Major… your mind continues to return to this scene…”

 

> _“I never had… a family… Shepard. Never had children.”_

“I feel…” Kaidan watched Shepard sputter and laugh, eyelids flickering closed, “I feel like this is the way forward. But I gotta say… I just wish… it’s something I wish I could’ve heard Shepard say out loud, y’know? We spent so much time talking about my dad, I guess the thought never occurred to me to ask Shepard if he wanted a family…”

 

> _“Yeah. I like the sound of that. I’m not sure I’d be much good at it though,” Shepard said, his head heavy._

“The time for that has passed, Major. Focus on what you have to accomplish.”

 

> _“No Ben, you’d be a great dad,” Kaidan whispered to he echo._
> 
> _“I don’t know about that… not everything I’ve done is something to be proud of…” Shepard answered._
> 
> _“God… feels like years since I just… sat down…” Anderson’s eyelids fluttered closed._
> 
> _“I think you earned a rest… Anderson…?_
> 
> _Anderson could only respond with a groan._
> 
> _“Stay with me.”_
> 
> _“You did good, son. You did good… I’m… proud of you…”_
> 
> _“Thank you, sir… Anderson?”_
> 
> _Like father, like son._
> 
> _Shepard would never have that feeling. Never have that fear that he had passed his sin on to his children with the color of his eyes._
> 
> _He’d never leave his children an inheritance of ruin and death, like a stink that clung to the armor he left for them to donate to the same museums that didn’t want the whole story._
> 
> _But never able to tell his children he was proud of them. Never able to tell his partner they should be proud together._
> 
> _He looked down at his hand, slick with his own blood. A wide gash lay open in his palm, from the Echo Shard…_
> 
> _No, the blood was from the hole in his side._
> 
> _This was the end, then._
> 
> _Earth was safe._
> 
> _Kaidan was safe._
> 
> _“Shepard? Commander?” It was Hackett’s voice. Shepard struggled back to consciousness, slumping forward, trying to get his knees under him._
> 
> _“Wh—what do you need me to do?”_
> 
> _“Nothing’s happening. The Crucible’s not firing,” Hackett said. Outside the Citadel, a Reaper beam tore through a turian warship. Shepard could not stand. He dragged himself to the control panel. “It’s got to be something on your end!”_
> 
> _The floor was slick with Shepard’s blood as he pulled himself along, head reeling, eyes swimming from the loss of blood._
> 
> _‘Grip the gun. Go to the light.’_
> 
> _“Commander Shepard?_
> 
> _“I don’t see… I’m not sure how to…” Shepard’s vision went blurry, his heart fell into his stomach._
> 
> _“Commander?”_
> 
> _Everything went black._
> 
> Kaidan tightened his grip around the Echo Shard, brow creasing at the surge of pain.
> 
> _“Wake up.”_
> 
> _It was a child’s voice… or nearly a child’s voice. As Shepard opened his eyes, saw an expansive chamber, a glowing beam erupting from the center. There was Earth again through the window. They were still on the Citadel._
> 
> _Shepard groaned with the effort of rising to his feet. There was a tickling deep within his skull. Like Leviathan. Like the Illusive Man. But more gentle, as if it had been waiting within him. A shimmering being stood before him, a cloudy hologram. It was the little boy he had seen in Vancouver. The one he’d told Kaidan about. The boy he couldn’t save._
> 
> _The boy from the nightmares._
> 
> _When he spoke, it was impossible to tell if he had spoken at all, or if the sound was coming from the tickling at the back of Shepard’s mind, and there was a whisper as of Shepard’s own voice woven into the echoing sound._
> 
> _It lived aboard the Citadel. It was a child. Shepard spoke to it like a child._
> 
> _Except it was ancient._
> 
> _“Who are you?” Shepard asked, clutching his side, where blood still seeped out from between the broken armor plates._
> 
> _“I am the Catalyst.” It answered simply. Here at last, then, was the truth. The Citadel was not the Catalyst, it was the home of the Catalyst. Another tool for the Reapers from the start._
> 
> _The Reapers were its agents, it was the Intelligence that Leviathan had created._
> 
> _A child. Their child._
> 
> _A child created whose purpose was to solve the problem of chaos…_
> 
> _“The created will always rebel against their creators,” the boy said, “but we found a way to stop that from happening. A way to restore order.”_
> 
> _“By wiping out organic life?” The sound of Shepard’s voice made Kaidan tremble. Ben was exhausted. The voice in the back of his mind was the only comfort, slowly pooling against the walls of Shepard’s hatred of the Reapers. Almost hopeless, Shepard was barely able to hold himself up, barely able to cling to this last strange hope._
> 
> _He tried to slow his thoughts, as if to say ‘you have been wrong before. The geth were never the enemy. The rachni were not the enemy. Even Cerberus had its uses. Even Kaidan had admitted that. Kaidan… who thought so much more about the right and wrong of things… Kaidan…’_
> 
> _“No,” the boy assured, “We harvest advanced civilizations, leaving the younger ones alone. Just as we left your people alive the last time we were here.”_
> 
> _“But you killed the rest!”_
> 
> _“We helped them ascend so they could make way for new life, storing the old life in Reaper form.”_
> 
> _All was not lost. How many eons of sapient species were stored in the old machines? With every Reaper Shepard had killed… he had wiped out the last voices of a harvested species. Sovereign was a nation, and by killing that nation, Shepard had decimated all that remained of an entire civilization. But no, this was not fair, the Reapers had destroyed the galaxy too many times to count. They had robbed countless civilizations of freedom._
> 
> _Except that, as each civilization coalesced its genetic destiny into a Reaper, it took up the Reapers’ purpose… decided that its own harvesting had_ indeed _been for the greater good…_
> 
> _And yet…_
> 
> _“I think we’d rather keep our own form.” Shepard spoke softly to the boy. Kaidan had never seen Shepard talk to a child before. Even through the exhaustion, Shepard’s voice was kind, patient. As if everything could be explained, or at least that Shepard was willing to try. He would explain organic life the way he would explain to his son what it meant to grow up._
> 
> _“No. You can’t,” the boy retorted, responding with equal patience, “Without us to stop it, synthetics would destroy_ all _organics. We’ve created the cycle so that never happens. That’s the solution.”_
> 
> _Even through the voice in the back of his skull and the rasping pressure of his lungs against broken ribs, Shepard had to admire the boy. He had an objective absolutism like the one Shepard had spent years achieving. Once, Shepard would have raised his gun on the apparition, convinced that the time for talking had passed. But a lot had happened since then. There was a chance to do this the right way._
> 
> _And so, for all his admiration, that absolutism—the Catalyst for the galaxy’s final hope—frightened Shepard. Had Shepard himself overlooked a solution in his blind campaign to destroy the Reapers? It was the sick feeling he had in the pit of his stomach when confronting Kaidan on Horizon: wondering if his haste to try to help people had led him to make a worse decision. Or to do the right thing in the wrong way._
> 
> _When Sovereign had attacked the Citadel, Shepard had been prepared to sacrifice the Destiny Ascension to ensure that the fifth fleet would strike with full force against the Reaper. It was Kaidan that had urged that the Council be saved from even their own stupidity._
> 
> _When the Collectors had been defeated, Kaidan’s judgment on Horizon ringing in his ears, Shepard had not allowed the base to fall into Cerberus’ hands._
> 
> _Kaidan had an idealism the universe needed. It should be_ Kaidan _here. But it was only Shepard here now._
> 
> _He would find out as much as he could._
> 
> _The Catalyst was the collective intelligence of all Reapers, created by Leviathan to manage the tumultuous relationship between synthetics and organics. So it created the Reapers, exterminating all advanced organic life._
> 
> _It began with the Leviathan, despite the fact that Leviathan had not, before the Catalyst, relied on synthetics. The boy espoused it as the only solution._
> 
> _“Organics create synthetics to improve their own existence,” the boy continued, “but those improvements have limits. To exceed those limits, synthetics must be allowed to evolve. They must, by definition, surpass their creators. The result is conflict, destruction, chaos. It is inevitable. Reapers harvest all life, organic and synthetics, preserving them before they are forever lost to this conflict.”_
> 
> _Shepard’s mind fogged over, the sound of his own voice whispering the words. Leviathan was the oldest, the first. And it had its slaves—its thrall races—to improve their existence. These races built synthetics for the same reason. It was by definition the ‘natural course.’_
> 
> _It reminded him of Kaidan, for some reason. How his military father had been enraged when Kaidan ran away, humiliated when Kaidan returned to the military._
> 
> _His kids. ‘Telling everyone their dad was Commander Shepard.’_
> 
> _The Catalyst continued to explain the Crucible: designed over innumerable cycles, it was a colossal power source capable of sending tremendous amounts of energy through the galaxy. The Reapers had believed the designs to be eradicated._
> 
> _Shepard spoke up. This was a proof that organics wanted to live, not to ‘ascend’ into Reaper form._
> 
> _“You’re taking away our future,” he urged, “without a future we have no hope. Without hope we might as well be machines, programmed to do as we’re told.”_
> 
> _How new the idea of a ‘future’ was to Shepard, and how powerful it already seemed._
> 
> _“You have hope. More than you think. The fact that you are standing here, the first organic ever proves it, but it also proves my solution won’t work anymore.”_
> 
> _“So now what?” Shepard asked cautiously._
> 
> _“We find a new solution.”_
> 
> _“…why are you telling me this? Why help me?”_
> 
> _“You have altered the variables.”_
> 
> _“What do you mean?”_
> 
> _“The Crucible changed me,” the boy said, turning his attention to the shimmering column of light in the center of the chamber, and the two interfaces which flanked it on either side, “Created new… possibilities. But I can’t make them happen. If there is to be a new solution. You must act. It is now in your power to destroy us.”_
> 
> _Shepard looked at the conduit upon a platform to the right of the pillar of light. He imagined Anderson, pistol drawn, shattering the protective seals on the conduit… ending the Reapers._
> 
> _“But be warned, others will be destroyed as well,” the boy was quick to supply, “the Crucible will not discriminate. All synthetics will be targeted. Even you are partly synthetic.”_
> 
> _His own safety was not a priority. There was no way he would survive his injuries anyhow._
> 
> _…but hadn’t he survived worse?_
> 
> _Still, to destroy_ all _synthetics?_
> 
> _“…What exactly will happen?” he asked, the tickle at the back of his mind making his mind hazy._
> 
> _“The effects of the blast will not be constrained to the Reapers… those who survive will have little difficulty in repairing the damage… there will still be losses, but no more than what has already been lost.”_
> 
> _“…but the Reapers will be destroyed?” Shepard’s voice was small and tired. Desperately tired._

“Do it Shepard. Shoot it and let’s go home. I’m waiting for you,” Kaidan whispered, shivering beneath Javik’s touch.

“Major… you are losing yourself in the memory once again…” Javik’s voice was strained.

“He’s right there, Javik, he’s so tired. Can’t… can’t you feel how tired he is? He needs to rest. I need to bring him home.”

 

> _Kaidan reached out his hand, as if he could slip his arm around Shepard’s shoulders, guide his ruined arm to take aim at the conduit, to end the war. To send Shepard to wait for him in the hospital in London._
> 
> _But Shepard was alone._
> 
> _“Yes. But the peace won’t last,” the Catalyst rushed to add, “soon, your children will create synthetics, and then the chaos will come back.”_
> 
> _Shepard’s heart sank. Children. And the legacy he would pass, that they would all pass._
> 
> _“There has to be another way.”_
> 
> _“There is, you could instead use the energy of the Crucible to seize control of the Reapers.”_
> 
> _It was easy to imagine the Illusive Man at the interface to the left of the column of light, winning the technology of the Reapers for the advancement of mankind. Organics once again using synthetics to improve their own lives, millions of years of advancement crossed in a single moment._
> 
> _But he would not have been able to do it. He was fully indoctrinated. The thought made the voice in the back of Shepard’s mind crackle. No, the Illusive Man could not have controlled the Reapers as he wanted._
> 
> _“But I can?” Shepard asked._
> 
> _“You will die,” the boy said lightly, “You will control us, but you will lose everything you have.”_
> 
> _Shepard didn’t have much. He remembered his conversation with Javik, it felt like a lifetime ago, saying the only thing he had in his life was death. He had been responsible for so much death. And always, he had told himself, for a good cause. He wasn’t proud of it, though._
> 
> _He had tried his best. So had the Illusive Man._
> 
> _‘I tried, Shepard.’_
> 
> _His essence would continue, integrated into the collective intelligence of the Reapers._
> 
> _Had he hated the Reapers so much that he would not consider this solution? No, he couldn’t do it. Kaidan believed in him. The galaxy believed in him. But no one had the power… the wisdom to control the Reapers._
> 
> _Kaidan nodded solemnly. Still trying to urge Shepard on to destroy the power conduit. So this is why Shepard was so troubled. Faced with the choice to destroy the Reapers and also kill all synthetic life in the galaxy, or to take control of the Reapers and risk the corruption of that power._
> 
> _It was a difficult choice. But he had made the right one. Hadn’t he just told the Illusive Man that no man should have that power? He would tell Shepard that if he ever saw the man again. Kaidan would tell him he had made the right choice: there is no knowing if Shepard’s personality would not have been overwhelmed by the eons ancient AI, and then the cycles would continue. He would tell Shepard—_
> 
> _“There is another solution,” the child spoke, “Synthesis.”_
> 
> _The shard bit into Kaidan’s hand, the sensation of hot blood down his palm distracting from the scene he watched in Shepard’s mind for only a moment._
> 
> _The column of light in the center of the room. The focal point of the entire chamber._
> 
> _“And that is?” Shepard asked tentatively._
> 
> _“Add your energy to the Crucible’s. The chain reaction will combine all synthetic and organic life into a new framework. A new DNA… Your organic energy, the essence of who and what you are, will be broken down and then dispersed… the energy of the Crucible, released in this way, will alter the matrix of all organic life in the galaxy.”_
> 
> _Kaidan could feel Shepard’s body tense at the possibility. The boy went on:_
> 
> _“Organics seek perfection through technology, synthetics seek perfection through understanding. Organics will be perfected by integrating fully with synthetic technology. Synthetics in turn will finally have understanding of organics. It is the ideal solution. Now that we know it is possible, it is inevitable we will reach synthesis.”_
> 
> _They had tried the solution before, but organics were not ready for it. Shepard’s presence proved that now the universe was ready for this inevitability._
> 
> _The idea staggered Kaidan’s imagination._
> 
> _“You’re asking me to change everything, everyone. I can’t make that decision, and I won’t!” Shepard said, though his voice shook._
> 
> _“Why not?” the boy asked, and the whispers in Shepard’s head seemed to him to sound again like his own voice, “Synthetics are already part of you. Can you imagine your life without them?”_
> 
> _“That’s beside the point!”_
> 
> _“Your time is at an end,” the Catlyst cut him off, “you must decide.”_
> 
> _Now the time for talking was over. It was time to end this._
> 
> _“Let’s get this over with.”_
> 
> _“Do what you must.”_
> 
> _The catalyst stepped aside, and the room shifted, ramps rising up to the control interface and the exposed power conduit. On level ground, the wide gangway led to the beam of light, and the Final Evolution of life._
> 
> _Shepard stood frozen._
> 
> _‘Drop the gun. Go to the light.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> The choice.


	52. The Difference between a Voice and the Echo, Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard makes his choice, sees his life.

> _Kaidan watched through Shepard’s eyes as the man he loved stumbled toward the synthesis beam in the center of the Crucible chamber. The tickle in his brain had become a throbbing surge, like the thud of kettle drums driving him on._
> 
> _It was an impossible choice. But he had to make a decision. He had to remember the mission: stop the Reapers._
> 
> _But no, the real mission was to save lives._
> 
> _‘Drop the gun. Go to the light.’_
> 
> _Drop the gun._
> 
> _Drop._
> 
> _Drop._
> 
> _He could save everyone. EDI and the geth would not have to die. The sacrifice of countless civilizations could be redeemed, their knowledge and culture made available to everyone who ever lived. His own life would be over, but his death could have meaning. There could be understanding for the first time in history. Wasn’t that why Kaidan always admired him? The ability to make peace…_
> 
> _Kaidan._
> 
> _‘Sometimes the way a thing goes down_ does _matter.’_
> 
> _To change everyone, everything in the galaxy… could he do that? It wouldn’t be giving them hope, it wouldn’t be teaching them peace, it would be forcing it on them. This wasn’t the same as negotiating peace between the geth and the quarians. This was hijacking every race in the galaxy._
> 
> _If synthesis was inevitable, then it would happen naturally._
> 
> _But if synthetics came back, destroyed humanity?_
> 
> _The sound of drums beat in his ears. The prickle in the back of his mind was all that kept him going. Go to the light._
> 
> _‘Sometimes the way a thing goes down does matter…’_
> 
> _‘…later, when you have to live with yourself.’_
> 
> _Why? The words rang through Shepard’s mind. He nearly sobbed. Why did it matter? Just so you could live with yourself, after? So you wouldn’t be haunted by the guilt of your actions? That hardly mattered, now: Shepard’s insides were cold, the way his skin had been since Leviathan first entered his mind. It had been the first touch of death._
> 
> _‘Knowing that you acted… with integrity. Then it matters.’_
> 
> _What was integrity worth?_
> 
> _Everything, to Kaidan._
> 
> _Wherever Kaidan was, fighting for his life in the swarm of starships outside, he would believe Shepard had acted with integrity. Whether he lived, or not._
> 
> _Everyone would believe that. The media, the stories, his friends._
> 
> _Kaidan._
> 
> _How could he be worthy of that?_
> 
> _They wanted him to destroy the Reapers. But they didn’t know there was another option…_
> 
> _Kaidan felt the horror in Shepard’s mind, the uncertainty as he turned away from the bright pillar and looked up at the power conduit._
> 
> _To destroy the Reapers… it would kill billions of other synthetic life forms: the geth, finally cooperating with their creators, helping the quarians overcome their genetic weaknesses. EDI… so recently introduced to her humanity._
> 
> _But it had to be ruthless calculus. It was the geth or the entire galaxy._
> 
> _Or synthesis, and everyone could live._
> 
> _Only he would have to die. He was ready, his life was duty…_
> 
> _No. His life_ had _been duty. Now he had someone to live for. A man he loved._
> 
> _He didn’t know if Kaidan was still alive, and suddenly every second that passed was a second when one of the exploding ships out in orbit could be the Normandy. He had to make a choice now._
> 
> _Shepard didn’t know what to do. Years ago, he would have already leapt into the beam. There were no ethical qualms in him, particularly if it meant saving the greatest number of lives. Now he could only see the arrogance of that choice, believing that he could dictate for every living being the way the future must progress._
> 
> _‘Sometimes, the way a thing goes down does matter.’_
> 
> _Shepard had found his own way with Kaidan’s help, of his own choice…_ that _was integrity._
> 
> _But what was integrity worth? Was Shepard’s newfound sense of justice and ‘the right way’ of doing things more important than_ billions _of lives? Was the freedom of trillions to choose their next step worth sacrificing the lives of trillions more? What was the exchange? Was it more arrogant to assume he could righteously choose the future of the galaxy, or to justify so much death because of all his morals?_
> 
> _The morals of a man who had nothing and nobody to lose._
> 
> _No. Years ago, he had nobody. Now he had Kaidan._
> 
> _No. The mission must come first. He can’t think of Kaidan at a time like this._
> 
> _And he would never see Kaidan again, anyway. With the amount of blood he had lost?_
> 
> _Shepard didn’t know what his choice would do to the universe. Not fully. The only thing he knew was that if he entered that synthesis beam, it would break him down on the molecular level, and he would be dead. But if he destroyed the power conduit… death wasn’t a certainty._
> 
> _He almost hadn’t realized he’d begun limping up the ramp to the power conduit._
> 
> _He had to hurry. The throbbing in his head had grown louder. Kaidan could be dying with every second he wasted._
> 
> _The Reapers were the enemy. They had exterminated trillions._
> 
> _But he could save the knowledge of the people they had slaughtered, unless he destroyed the Reapers now!_
> 
> _Organics and synthetics had to earn their peace, had to choose their synthesis. Just as Kaidan had said about humanity’s place on the Council when they had first spoken those years ago._
> 
> _Kaidan._
> 
> _But the catalyst had said they were ready. It had been watching organics for millions of years. It would know._
> 
> _But it would do anything to preserve itself!_
> 
> _No, the Reapers were true believers. They didn’t have a self-preservation instinct, they were dedicated only to preserving life in the universe._
> 
> _Shepard was no true believer. And he was no hero. If he believed that, he must destroy the Reapers: if synthetics returned, another soldier like him would handle the problem then. But he was here._ Now _. Wasn’t that why he had accepted the Spectre status? The hero worship? The press? The gifts? Because he was here now and could_ do _something about it?_
> 
> _Wasn’t that why he himself had dived to the ocean floor and risked everything for a chance to discover Leviathan? He had a responsibility._
> 
> _‘Grip the gun.’_
> 
> _Shepard had a self-preservation instinct. Surviving. That was what Shepard was best at. That’s what he had told Kaidan._
> 
> _Kaidan._
> 
> _After Akuze, he told Kaidan, he decided surviving wasn’t good enough. He had to stand for something. If he died in that synthesis beam, he would die. Would he die as a monster—forcing evolution on an unsuspecting galaxy—or would he die as a hero? If he destroyed the Reapers… he might survive. But would it be… mere survival?_
> 
> _What would Kaidan say?_
> 
> _Kaidan._
> 
> _Shepard stumbled on the ramp._
> 
> _‘Grip the gun.’_
> 
> _He grit his teeth and raised his gun, arm throbbing._
> 
> _Four shots rang out._
> 
> _His vision was blurry, his shots pinged off the metal casing on either side of the conduit._
> 
> _With a groan, he forced his legs to move again. So many had died. Ashley. Thane. Mordin. Anderson. If he did this… many more would die. He would be committing genocide. Kaidan could not abide by genocide._
> 
> _Kaidan._
> 
> _But EDI and the geth had said they would rather die than succumb to the Reapers control. Wasn’t that the same as forcing synthesis?_
> 
> _No. It wasn’t. They would serve no masters, there would be peace._
> 
> _He nearly turned to go back down the ramp._
> 
> _But at the cost of their soul?_
> 
> _Kaidan?_

“Shepard…” Kaidan whispered, his hands trembling around the Echo Shard, even as blood seeped out from between his fingers, “I’m here Shepard. I… I don’t know what to do, Ben. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just don’t know.”

> _Things could change. People could learn. Since he had met Kaidan, he had changed in so many ways. Hadn’t he told Kaidan that?_
> 
> _He was lost._
> 
> _Kaidan._
> 
> _Someone to live for._
> 
> _Kaidan._
> 
> _‘When this is over, I’m gonna be waiting for you…’_
> 
> _Kaidan._
> 
> _‘…you better show up.’_
> 
> _‘GRIP YOUR GUN.’_
> 
> _Shepard’s back straightened and he found sure footing at the top of the ramp, raised his pistol again, shot after shot found its target in the exposed conduit._
> 
> _It cracked._
> 
> _The chamber rocked and the little boy flickered out of existence. The Echo Shard slowed the flow of memories, an instant made a lifetime as Kaidan watched._
> 
> _‘People near death say their lives flash before their eyes…’_
> 
> _Tongues of flame erupted from the shattering conduit, Shepard felt the heat against his face, steadied his gun with both hands and continued firing._
> 
> _He was a boy outside the burning rubble of his block, the Tenth Street Reds picking through the pockets of the citizens caught in the crossfire of the gang war. The block was burning, a woman who had given Shepard vegetables every other weekend was engulfed in fire. Shepard knew that when she stopped burning, he could fetch the broach from her remains, so he stayed back when the other boys fought over the pocket change on the street._
> 
> _He was nursing broken fingers beneath the Sixth October Bridge—dozens of times—where he went whenever he needed to be alone. The other children had never followed him here, they would never find him here. If he didn’t need food, he would stay here forever. Alone. Tears streamed down his face—once, twice—when he was older, the broken fingers didn’t hurt as bad. His hands were gnarled and that made the other gang members frightened. But he could always be alone under the bridge._
> 
> _Further back, Ben and an older man. They went from city to city, and he was as old as the man said he was. Sometimes, the man would carry him like he was an average four-year old, frightened by the crowds. Sometimes he was told to walk along side and tell anyone who asked that he was 10. He had never been frightened by crowds, he never knew the man’s name. He’d had too many. The man spoke Ben’s name “Benjamin Shepard” in a way that separated him from the child. City to city, until they came back to the sun, and Shepard felt at home when he heard that warm sea in the distance again._
> 
> _A wave washed over him, Jru was on the shore sleeping and Shepard had slipped away to swim in the sea. The water was so warm, the salt smell of it staining his lips. Under the surface, the sound of the water made him feel lonely and endless: one with the sea, but only one sea. He could dive as far down as he could, he could reach the bottom—if only. When he emerged, Jru would be gone, and he would be alone. Another day, another year, sky sunny, sky cloudy: so many memories of the sea._
> 
> _He was 16 and rebuffing the advances of a boy he’d known for years, someone he couldn’t possibly trust, to say nothing about love. The boy had green eyes and a white smile, and the girls said he was handsome—but he was a stranger, and Shepard saw only that. He had known Shepard for years, he said he loved Shepard. He had been a stranger for years and years. But he swore he loved Shepard._
> 
> _He was at the apartment with the red drapes, where the stove and the sink and the bed and the table were all an arm’s length from each other. All the other Reds had nice places, all the money they’d earned invested in the furniture and the tech. Shepard’s money was hidden away. The apartment had the brown, living smell of insects in the walls. Bare chested, he could feel the heat of the afternoon sun through the red drapes. The walls were just as thin, and he could practically feel the heat of the other residents carried in on the sound of their footsteps, their fucking, their arguments. It was his own place, but he wasn’t alone even behind the locked door. Mahmud had been shot yesterday, and all Shepard could think about was how good it felt to have this new stage, all his own, to present himself to the people always watching._
> 
> _He was in Singapore, he had just decked the leader of a rival gang. Shepard could feel the man’s jaw breaking beneath his fist, the spark of biotic static that made his hair stand-up whenever he threw a punch like that. The Reds would control this operation, now, and could start shipping Red Sand off-world. Shepard tried to think about this on the transport, but he didn’t care. He wanted to be back under the bridge and alone. He wanted to find a boy who would watch his back and take him to bed._
> 
> _The only ones who called him Benjamin bin La’ahad were the ones that had teased him with that before he had agreed to be part of the Reds formally. Now they used it like a pet name. “Ibn La’ahad!” rang down the street when they punched a melon and pretended they were shimmering with biotics, or staggering past some other kids mimicking the way he glowed and got loopy when they gave him Red Sand. Quiet Ben, Shepard. “Ibn La’ahad” never fit any of the other boys so well as it did Ben, even the brief year they tried to make it their little pack’s collective name._
> 
> _He was awestruck. The man called The Eye had an office full of bird cages, tweeting in a dozen different little songs over the call to prayer trickling through the open windows. They were beautiful birds, the dingy ones, the rusted ones, the bright yellow and green ones all. The representatives from the Reds stood in silence, waiting for the room to die down. Shepard came in lit up, like he always did, but the birds were ruffled and put off by his biotics. He felt horrible for them, and turned his biotics off. Still they tweeted and tittered and Ben didn’t know what they were saying, couldn’t tell if they were still agitated._
> 
> _There were screams from the other room: the Reds were executing a man. Shepard had helped to clear the building. He had never wanted to kill anyone. There was blood everywhere. The police would find a tableau of slaughter, no one would know Shepard had a part, and none of the Reds would notice him in one corner, huddled into himself. Pretending his ankle was broken so he didn’t have to help them torture their target. He had kicked the door down. All eyes had been on him, and he had kicked the door open like a wretched boy prying a turtle from its shell._
> 
> _He was in New York, a busboy, a dancer, a boxer, he was stuffing tips under his blankets. When he should have bought a mattress, he bought a model kit. He stole three smaller models on a convenient display. In thirty-seven weeks, he would join the Alliance._
> 
> _He was whatever age he said he was, and the customers just tipped. The stage lights tonight were red, and they made his skin look darker, and if the man who paid the most asked if he was seventeen, he’d be seventeen. Tomorrow night the lights were blue and bright, and washed his skin out, and a different kind of rich man hope he was twenty-one, so he was. Early in the night he’d been twenty, he had talked shit against his opponent in the ring. Had punched him hard enough where the man staggered against the cage. The new amp in his head couldn’t be trusted, not yet. Weeks until he joined the Alliance. Weeks, weeks, weeks._
> 
> _He was at Arcturus Station, his roommate had given him a jar of grape leaves for his birthday. Shepard had picked a day at random for his birthday to enlist with the Alliance. Even with the gift, his birthday was always a reminder of trying to escape a life that was trying to kill him._
> 
> _Combat medical training: Martinez had fake blood dripping from his nose, wailing like a B-movie heroine in their simulation until the entire class laughed. So Shepard had laughed. When it had been time for Shepard to play patient, he lay beneath the rubble and ‘pretended,’ until the instructor really_ believed _he was in volumetric shock and stopped the simulation. He was not allowed to play patient after._
> 
> _He was in the field, he was at the Villa, he was in the bed of one of his teammates, fucked-out and exhausted, heaped over each other unceremoniously. Touching but never holding one another._
> 
> _There was a Private on his transport that had been playing cards with him for weeks. Walked him to the lift each night when it was over. He didn’t need to say he was in love with Shepard, Ben just knew. He never had the chance to swear it. Was he a stranger?_
> 
> _He was on Akuze, belly down on the sand, never wondering whether or not his body would survive to the edge of the desert. He was alone. The heat slowly transforming him into a man for whom survival was no longer enough._
> 
> _“Shepard, come on! Dance!” How did you_ just _dance? People laughed, so Shepard laughed._
> 
> _He awoke to Miranda’s voice, face stinging and alone. His skin was so pale he couldn’t believe it. Blue lights and bright… Grip the gun._
> 
> _Hadn’t he been dead?_
> 
> _He was dying now. Engulfed in flames._
> 
> _The memories flickered through Shepard’s mind in an instant, and Kaidan saw them in the Echo Shard. Death. Survival. A silent apology to EDI. A goodbye to Anderson._
> 
> _‘People near death say their lives flash before their eyes. Well the future flashed for me.’_
> 
> _Shepard had never thought far enough into the future. He had never had a reason to before, mission would follow mission till he was dead. But Kaidan… would he see him?_
> 
> _He was on the Normandy SR-1. It was the first time he met Kaidan. Quiet, serious, and beautiful. He remembered rolling his eyes when he caught himself watching Kaidan’s lips instead of his eyes when they spoke. He’d almost forgotten what Kaidan had looked like on that first mission. How young. The deep dark hair before it became flecked with gray stars._
> 
> _Kaidan in new armor, twice as strong as anything anyone else was wearing. Laughing about the cold on Noveria, “should have brought a sweater.” His face was so smooth and his eyes were so bright._
> 
> _He was watching Kaidan work at the console outside his quarters. They had left Virmire. It was the first time he’d seen him since Kaidan had gotten out of medbay. It was the first time Shepard had spoken to him about difficult choices, asking why Shepard had chosen him instead of Ashley._
> 
> _He was in the Council chambers after Sovereign’s attack, debris scattered about him. He had rushed to the top of a large piece of debris, stared down at Kaidan, smiling up at him._
> 
> _Kaidan was standing amid flames in his hardsuit, telling Shepard he would not leave. Shepard told him to go, and then died._
> 
> _He was staring at a picture of Kaidan on Councilor Anderson’s desk in the Presidium. The scars in his cheek burned, his pulse quickened. He had missed two years of his life, alone._
> 
> _He was standing on Horizon._
> 
> _He was walking past Kaidan on his way to speak to the Alliance, the new Major’s eyes were soft above his hard smile._
> 
> _He was standing outside a hospital room, had been standing there for hours, watching the soft rise and fall of Kaidan’s chest._
> 
> _He was walking into the room now, Kaidan sitting up straight to welcome him in._
> 
> _He was standing gun to gun with Kaidan, finger trembling on the trigger, wondering if he would have to sacrifice Kaidan to save the Council…_
> 
> _He found Kaidan standing against a field of stars, somber, serious, and beautiful. They shared the stars and told them what was at stake in this war. Kaidan was a warm night with a bright sky._
> 
> _Said everything but “I love you,” and Kaidan swore like the stars swore: silently, simply by being. Filling the sky in shapes and signs._
> 
> _Kaidan watched the Presidium and told Shepard that he wanted to be with him. He was at Apollo’s and maybe he would never leave. But of course Shepard wasn’t alone, and he had never been. He had acted so alone he had proven it to himself, and he would never ask himself to play the role again._
> 
> _He was stumbling out of his mec in the rain, Brutes advancing as he tried to steady his legs. Kaidan was rushing through the fray, gun drawn, to save him._
> 
> _He saw himself aboard the Normandy, leaving the medbay and making for the Starboard Observation Lounge, and Kaidan turning to meet him, smiling…_
> 
> _Kaidan…_
> 
> _Shepard marched forward, widening the breach in the power conduit, and there was a fiery flash as the explosion engulfed him._
> 
> _Kaidan could hear his own breathing as the memories flickered between darkness and… and…_
> 
> _The chamber was falling apart. Shepard had been thrown to the ground. He was struggling with consciousness._
> 
> _As the room shook, the Crucible wave building within, Shepard reached into his ruined armor with a shaking hand, pulled his dog tags out. They would need the tags to identify whatever was left of his body… there were instructions for Kaidan…_

Then there was darkness.

Kaidan’s grip did not loosen on the Echo Shard.

“…Major?” Javik said lightly.

“I… think there must be more…”

“…there is no more, Kaidan.”

Kaidan closed his eyes, lips trembling.

“Let’s just… wait a minute more… just a minute… please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Something else has imprinted memories on the Echo Shard


	53. The Difference between Vengeance and Medicine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected presence in the Echo Shard

They stood quiet, the Echo Shard in Kaidan’s hand, his eyes closed, as if willing it to reveal more.

“He was thinking about me, at the end,” Kaidan said to the blackness. “A-all of us. But me. He needed me there and I wasn’t.”

“Every man is alone in his own mind, regardless,” Javik said, his hand on Kaidan’s shoulder, pulling him away from the memory. But Kaidan wouldn’t budge.

“Not Shepard… not anymore. Now I know,” Kaidan’s voice was tight.

“What will you do now?”

“First I just… want to wait another minute. To see if there’s anymore. S-shouldn’t the Shard be showing _something?_ ”

“There is no more to see here, come away.”

Kaidan squeezed his eyes shut tighter.

“Why can’t I see any more?” His voice was shaking.

“There _is_ no more to see,” Javik said gently. “Commander Shep—“

“Javik!” Kaidan froze stiff, “Do you feel that? I feel like there’s something else…”

A jolt rocked the two.

> _The thoughts were alien. Cold fingers seized Shepard’s armor, and began to drag him across the floor of the rumbling chamber. The chamber had to be maintained…_

“Keepers…” Kaidan whispered.

> _As the Keeper dragged Shepard back down to the processing facilities, the Echo Shard flashed, trying to make sense of the Keeper’s information._
> 
> _Images sped through Kaidan’s mind, disjointed splashes of places and times, much the way Shepard had described his first encounter with the Prothean beacon._
> 
> _The Keeper had no mind to speak of, but the Echo Shard absorbed the legacy programmed deep into its genetic structure—jumbled together with the Reaper programming and the day-to-day functions—the lifetime of its people and their final struggle hidden in every cell an every strand of DNA. The Echo Shard struggled to make sense of the somatic coding, but Kaidan was only able to perceive images, strings of thought from Keepers long dead, when they were a proud race._
> 
> _‘Discovered the ruins of the previous cycle…’_
> 
> _A hive ship above a green world, cities buried under boiling sea._
> 
> _‘The plans for the Crucible…’_
> 
> _Centuries later, a record of a rudimentary dark matter power amplifier._
> 
> _‘Warnings of destruction…’_
> 
> _A jumble of holographic recordings the insects watched in awe._
> 
> _The millennia began to slip through Kaidan’s mind like a wildfire:_
> 
> _‘Created AI to attempt to prepare for the oncoming threat from dark space…’_
> 
> _‘Constructed a network of Mass Relays, a giant control station, a Citadel…’_
> 
> _‘Explored the galaxy for 400,000 years before…’_
> 
> _A harvest ship carved in half._
> 
> _‘Reapers.’_
> 
> _The voice changed now, not the humming click of the insectoid Keepers, but the deep, nation-voice of a Reaper still burned in Kaidan’s memory:_
> 
> _‘Harvested too late… apex species built synthetic elements later than projected…_
> 
> _‘Evolved past proper evolutionary threshold… War with synthetics had already begun…’_
> 
> _The voice of a little boy:_
> 
> _‘New solution required…’_
> 
> _‘Genetics rewritten… an attempt at synthesizing synthetic and organic elements…’_
> 
> _‘Failure. Cannot create Reaper. Repurpose organic machines as Keepers, servants’_
> 
> _‘They will tend the Citadel, speed up time between cycles for faster analysis…’_
> 
> _Kaidan saw the scene: Keepers genetically modified en masse. Each generation born of waste biomass generated by the inhabitants of the Citadel. Each generation a more efficient biological machine, tied to the construct they’d created._
> 
> _Then, the genetic memories dove deeper. Hidden. Beyond even the reach of the Reapers and the most potent indoctrination._
> 
> _‘But the Keepers had had time to prepare, Keeper DNA would slowly carry out the will of their people…’_
> 
> _‘Reconstruct the Citadel to interface with the Crucible...’_
> 
> _‘Slowly adapt to suppress Reaper control…’_
> 
> _‘Organize Citadel to optimize Crucible firing sequence…’_
> 
> _‘Constant readjustment with new developments’_
> 
> _One final command, burned into the genes:_
> 
> _‘Lock down Citadel after firing sequence, await instructions from liberated Keepers… retake galaxy… retake home when their labor allowed the next cycle to overcome the Reapers…’_
> 
> _In the Echo Shard’s ‘present’, the Keeper dragged Shepard slowly back across the bridge, into a corridor much like the one Shepard had arrived on the Citadel in. As the huge insect hauled him to a pile of bodies, Shepard’s chest gave a sudden great heave._
> 
> _‘Living specimen. No protocol for processing. Return…’_
> 
> _Shepard was dragged to a transmitter which linked to the transport beam, the Keeper hurled him through. There was a flash. His body bounced on ruined concrete—_

The Echo Shard clattered to the floor. Kaidan’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed hard into the bulkhead, Javik catching him before he could topple forward.

A seizure surged through Kaidan’s body and his breath caught in the back of his throat in a hoarse gurgle. In a moment, he was still and sagging to the floor.

“Major!” Javik shook his shoulders, and Kaidan’s eyes flew open; he found his feet slowly.

“I’m alright, what happened?” he turned his back to the light, clutching his head.

“The memory download from the Keeper, the Echo Shard must have had difficulty aligning the information with your brain.”

“I just saw a flash of images, I could barely make sense of anything.” Kaidan staggered forward to lean against the console.

“The Keeper’s genetic memories are densely coded. The images of their civilization, passed on to every iteration of the machines the Reapers have made them.” When Javik stepped forward, his tread was shaky.

“The Keepers… they adapted to the Reapers’ control…” Kaidan said after a moment.

“It seems their solution was flawed,” Javik said, “Or else the Citadel arms would be open.”

“So what does that mean? The genetic instructions of what to do once the Crucible fired must have gotten corrupted… or diluted after how many times it’s been replicated?”

“A plan subtle enough to subvert the Reapers is also subtle enough to be lost to time.” Javik stared at the bulkhead, “One million of my kind learned this lesson.”

“So if only the Keepers can open the Citadel, but the code that allows them to do that hasn’t surfaced… does that mean it’s locked for good?”

“Perhaps the code is not emergent in the modern Keeper’s genetic structure, but it is still present, or the Echo Shard would not have found it.”

“What do you mean?”

“You saw the images just as I did. The genetic memory of these creatures is strange, but similar to the way Protheans build information into our beacons, and the Echo Shard is powerful.”

“You’re saying the instructions for what to do once the Crucible fires were… in those images we saw? Like how Shepard can access Prothean equipment after interacting with the beacon on Eden Prime?”

“It seems so,” Javik said. Kaidan looked down at the deep cut in his hand, looked back at the bloody Shard lying on the floor across the room. A tremble began in the tips of his fingers, snaked up his arms, until his whole body shivered.

“…can anything be done for the Keepers? If their memories are still in there…”

“As you saw, they are not memories as you understand them. What remains in their genetic memory are fragments, instructions. Even those instructions which surface are performed as a machine executes its programming.”

“They saved Ben.” Kaidan’s voice was hoarse.

“They meant to process his corpse to fashion more biological machines.”

“…and that’s why he’s alive.”

Javik stepped forward, cocking his head to one side, suppressing a shiver running up his back.

“You are troubled by what you have seen in the Echo Shard.” It was a statement. Kaidan did not meet his eye.

“The choice he had to make… no one should have to make a choice like that. No wonder he’s so…” Kaidan swallowed, “Broken.”

“It was no choice,” Javik’s scoffed, “There can be no peace with the Reapers! Shepard remembered he is a warrior!”

“That’s not what I saw. He wasn’t thinking like a warrior. He was… trying to do what was right.”

“And he chose correctly. Countless lives are avenged by his decision.”

“But if it’s true that all those lives could have been… if everything they knew could be _remembered_ somehow?” Kaidan leaned forward.

“You… would have let the Reapers join synthetics and organic life?” Javik’s voice was thick with horror.

“I don’t know,” Kaidan shook his head pressing his fist into his forehead, “I don’t _know_ what I would’ve done. But for so many to die… EDI and the geth… when we could have had the next phase of evolution?”

“You said before you would have made no peace with the Illusive Man, no matter what he had offered. How can you now say you would have allowed that machine to commit us all to this… synthesis?”

“It’s just… I don’t know.”

“Major—“

“No. I know. It’s done. It’s not… it’s not even worth thinking about. But… he had to make that decision alone,” Kaidan’s voice grew gravelly and hushed, “I told him he would never be alone. I told him he had to depend on his crew. But no one was there with him. I wasn’t there. Nothing but… memories of stupid conversations, talking about the universe and choice and saving lives like kids! Never knowing the stakes, never knowing what it was we were really up against!”

Kaidan shoved himself up from the console and leaned against the nearest bulkhead, shoulders rising and falling with the effort of his breathing.

“He couldn’t even talk to me about it!” Kaidan’s bloody fist rocketed into the wall, “And he’s killing himself because… because he’s not sure if he sacrificed all those lives… just to see me again…” His second punch hit the bulkhead with a dull thud.

Javik stepped up, grabbing hold of Kaidan’s shoulder and spinning him about face.

“It does not _matter_ why Ben—“ Javik started and took a step back, rubbing his palm over his face, “It does not matter why the _Commander_ chose to destroy the Reapers. The Reapers are dead. It was the correct choice.”

“’Sometimes the way a thing goes down does matter, later, when you have to live with yourself’” Kaidan recited softly, “We’ve talked a lot about that. And that’s why… at the end… and that’s why he’s so tortured now. I wasn’t there then…”

“And you will not be there to tell B—to tell Shepard you understand what he has hidden from you,” Javik finished. Kaidan stared, jaw locked tight, “Or did you think I would not see your plan?”

Kaidan blanched.

“I’m not talking about this, Javik.”

“There is nothing to talk about,” Javik leaned back, arms crossed, “We both understand the price which must be paid, sometimes, for victory. But I will never understand you, Major. You must be a martyr.”

“I’m not the one with a death wish.” Kaidan’s tone was low and dangerous.

“My work is done. Yours is not. You have attachments which fix you to this life. You live for the affection of your companions, your sense of duty to the people of the galaxy. And to the Commander,” Javik said, “I have seen your ‘Plan B.’ You need never go to the surface of that planet.”

“No. I have to.”

“Leviathan considers itself to be the apex species in the cosmos. You will not convince them otherwise,” Javik spat, waving his hand dismissively, “Shepard did not save the universe from the Reapers, did not save your life on Earth, so you could throw your life away offering the peace he earned to our enemies!”

Kaidan’s eyes flashed, the tension in his face making a vein near his temple throb.

“Don’t you dare tell me what Shepard would do,” Kaidan’s voice barely rose above a whisper, “this is not a choice I’m making to be a hero. Or a martyr. You _saw_ what happened to him in there! I’m doing this _for_ Shepard!”

Kaidan’s voice had grown into a roar, spittle flying from his mouth.

 “I’ve been watching him since earth fell. Watching him doubt himself. Watching the war grind him down. Watching him shiver in bed every night after Despoina. His nightmares…” Kaidan finally jammed the heel of his palm into his eye socket exhaling sharply through his teeth against his migraine, “And now the voices.”

“…you believe Shepard is indoctrinated.” Javik concluded.

“Leviathan, the Illusive Man, the Catalyst…” Kaidan’s word came out of his throat thick, nodding slowly, “And there’s nothing I can do to help him. Nothing except this. I have to talk to them. Not just because… because it’s the right thing. They’ve got to know how to help him.”

Kaidan walked back over to where the Echo Shard lay, picking it up gingerly in his good hand. He held it in front of his face, regarding the smooth and strange metal.

_“Kaidan?”_ It was Joker’s voice over the comms, “ _We’ve reached the Relay and it looks like our dead robot friends are still right where we tucked ‘em in.”_

“I’ll be right up.”

“ _Want me to get everyone together in the War Room?”_

“No. I need to pass out assignments one on one first. We’ll all meet at 1400. That should give me time.”

_“Roger._ ”

Kaidan turned back to Javik,

“I promised you we’d take you to the Cronian Nebula,” Kaidan’s features had calcified once again into a demeanor of martial command, “But I need both shuttles for the next week. Then one of them’s all yours.”

When he handed the Echo Shard—still bloody—to Javik, the old warrior regarded it cooly.

“It was a gift to the Commander.  Keep it. Perhaps it will remind you that not everything can be healed, but _everything_ can be avenged.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Return to the dead Reapers, preparations for the final confrontation.


	54. The Difference between Lies and Hopes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the meeting with Leviathan draws near, Kaidan puts his plan into action.

After bouncing back and forth across the galaxy, the Normandy finally arrived where they’d begun: out on the tip of the Crux-Scutum Arm, the three Reaper corpses still where they’d left them.

“You alright, Samantha?”

Kaidan lightly touched Traynor’s arm. She looked uncertain in a hard-suit, claustrophobic already without the helmet.

“I… yes. Yes I can do this. No problem. Just… just a little field work. No problem. No problem.”

“You’ll have Garrus and Gabby with you the whole time. You’re gonna do fine.”

“It’s just, if you would have told me a year ago I’d be boarding a dead Reaper…” she swallowed hard and avoided Kaidan’s gaze, “I probably would have laughed in your face. Or thrown up. Sill might throw up. I’m… going to have Doctor Chakwas give me a second dose of anit-nausea medication.”

“You’re going to be fine,” Kaidan tried to soothe her, “once you get working, you’ll forget all about where you are.”

“I hope you’re right… no. No: you’re right,” she scratched at her forehead and seemed to recoil at the feel of the armored gauntlet on her fingers. “Though, it _would_ help to know exactly what I’m doing.”

“Any worries about the code you developed?” Kaidan quirked an eyebrow.

“Oh, no sir!” she hurried, “Once we warm up a few key Reaper systems and upload the code, I’m sure it will allow us remote control of the basic ship systems. It’s just… Well. I don’t know _why_ I’m rigging the Reapers up to move.”

“It’ll all be at the briefing when you’re finished,” he said gently.

“We won’t have the _power_ to send commands to all _three_ ,” she bit her lip. “If we wanted to move all three we’d need—“

“Someone flying the Alpha Reaper. Controlling the other two from there. I get it, trust me, okay, Samantha?”

She nodded.

“I guess… pre-mission jitters. I’m really not used to this sort of thing.”

“It’s spooky in there, I’m not gonna lie. But you’ll do fine. Think of the stories you’ll have, eh?”

“Thank you, Major,” Traynor sighed mightily, “And I _do_ appreciate your trust in me.”

“You’ve come a long way, Specialist. From a lab on Earth to a derelict Reaper. I wouldn’t trust anyone else to install this code but you,” Kaidan smiled, and Traynor returned the smile through worried eyes, “Stay close to Garrus. Believe it or not he’s… a calming presence.”

++

The arrangements took a few days, and the installation would take about a week.

So far, everyone had been fairly impatient with the bare modicum of information Kaidan had given them concerning the operations with the Reapers. Everyone was champing at the bit to get to Despoina and get back to Earth, but after spending so long together on a mission to save the galaxy, no one showed any discontentment in a little engineering work.

Garrus had led Team Hammerhead with Traynor and Daniels aboard one of the Reapers—dubbed Beta Reaper. Once Traynor had set up the proper transmitters, Hammerhead moved on to Gamma Reaper to make the same modifications.

Meanwhile, James led Team Mako aboard Alpha Reaper with Cortez and Tali for necessary retrofits. By the time they were done, Alpha Relay was ready to fly—Cortez and Vega would be piloting it a few hours behind the Normandy—and Traynor’s code was installed on all three. As they prepared to leave the system, Kaidan finally called a meeting.

“We’ve got every reason to think that the system is crawling with the Collectors Leviathan liberated from Reaper control,” the senior staff was standing around the War Room, a holographic projection of Despoina hovering above the table.

“Do we have confirmation of that?” Liara was casting a wary eye at Javik, arms folded at a distance from the others, “When Leviathan originally liberated… that faction, they were operating as free agents.”

“According to comm signals,” Traynor spoke up, bent over a glowing console, “within hours of the Crucible wave, the Collectors left every system they had previously been deployed to. The envoy the Council sent to negotiate with Leviathan… reported sighting a ship before we lost contact. It sounds like a Collector ship, from the descriptions I’ve heard from Joker.”

“What size fleet are we talking here?” Steve asked.

“In all the commotion, the Alliance didn’t actually get a tally of how many Collector ships were on our side,” said Traynor. “They seemed to take the deployment orders as suggestions, anyhow.”  
  
“How come the Collectors didn’t go down with the rest of the husks after Shepard killed the Reapers?” James asked, turning to Kaidan.

“They’re not synthetic,” Tali supplied instead, “The Reapers altered them genetically to be easier to take control of, but they’re more like Keepers than like husks… I suppose.”

“So if the Reapers are gone,” Steve said quietly, “Does that mean Leviathan can take control of the entire Collector army that’s left behind?”

“I can’t believe Leviathan would just seize control of them again,” Liara seethed, looking through the holo at Javik, who shifted his weight. “We should try to free them!”

“It is alright, Liara. They are no longer true Protheans, they have spent too long as pawns. Do not pity them. And do not pity me.”

“Y’know, I’m willing to bet they were never on their own to begin with,” Engineer Adams said dourly, giving Kaidan a light elbow in the side. “I mean, what do we know about them? Leviathan broke the Reapers’ control over whatever was left of their fleet, and then what? They just decided to get revenge?”

“If they’ve spent that long getting messed with by the Reapers, can’t be much going on under the hood, anymore,” James surmised.

“Yeah, exactly,” Adams nodded. “Who else do we know wants revenge against the Reapers and was hit or miss on the coordinated ops? Leviathan, that’s who.”

“You think all they’re _incapable_ of operating without someone controlling them,” Liara frowned.

“I’m just sayin’,” Greg shrugged.

“Our priority here,” Kaidan squared his shoulders, cast a sidelong look at Javik, “Is to get in, negotiate with Leviathan, find out their intentions, get out and go home.”

 “We’ll be coming in in stealth mode anyway, if we’re lucky, the Collectors won’t even see us coming,” Tali offered.

“And if it comes to a fight, we’ll be ready. This isn’t our first time against a Collector fleet on the other side of a blind relay” Garrus had been watching the holo projector populate the estimated size and probable position of the Collector fleet in orbit around Despoina. It was a monumental force.

“And the Reapers we’ve been working on?” Traynor asked, “We still don’t know why we’ve been installing all that new code.”

“That’s our bargaining chip,” Kaidan smiled, the corner of his eyes crinkling as if his smile disguised a yawn, or a sigh, “Plan B. An… offering for Leviathan.”

“Something doesn’t feel right about handing Leviathan three functioning Reapers,” James rested his hands on his hips, the projection finally finished calculating the ideal pathway through the projected Collector patrols.

“Would three Reaper corpses even be useful to them?” Steve muttered.

“Like I said,” Kaidan interrupted, “Let’s hope we don’t need to use them. But we also need to remember that we need to do whatever we need to do to prevent another war.”

The room was silent, but Liara’s eyes narrowed watching the shift in Kaidan’s posture.

“Okay,” Kaidan said at last tracing their projected path across the surface of the holo with his finger, “James and Steve, you leave tonight. When we get to Despoina and sneak through their perimeter, Joker will get us close enough to drop me into atmo with the second shuttle. I’ll land on the same downed ship we found the first time we were here. The place was full of those… artefacts last time. With luck Leviathan will wanna talk.”

“… _that’s_ the plan?” Tali braced her hands on the table, “We’ll be lucky if the team even makes the surface in that shuttle!”

“Last time Leviathan knocked out the shuttle’s power just after piercing the troposphere,” Steve’s eyebrows knit together.

“And just exposing ourselves to those control orbs?” Garrus said, “What’s to stop them from just taking control of us?”

“Nothing,” Kaidan answered grimly, “Which is while I’ll be going down to negotiate one on one.” There was a general commotion in the room, and Kaidan raised a hand, “I have Spectre authority. It gives me the leeway to negotiate, this is exactly what Spectres are for. Worst case scenario, they read my mind and find out about the Reapers we have, they find out about Plan B, and negotiate for the Reapers. An olive branch.”

“Actually, worst case,” Tali scoffed, “they take control of your mind and send you back and you kill all of us and hand the Normandy over to them so they can use it as a flag ship for a full-scale invasion of the galaxy!” The senior staff shuffled uneasily in the silence that followed, “…alright, that was a little morbid.”

“Still, Tali’s got a point,” Garrus said, “We don’t have much to barter with here, Kaidan.”

“I know. But more people on the surface means more minds they can read, more variables to deal with. We’re going to take every precaution, the second my shuttle leaves the Normandy, Joker’s gonna high-tail it out of there to safety. No matter what… this ship doesn’t fall into enemy hands. If negotiations are successful, I’ll signal when I leave atmo, you pick me up, keep me under observation until we’re to the other side of the Relay and too far for Leviathan’s control to still be influencing me. That’s where we cancel Plan B.”

“I can’t say I’m very comfortable with you flying a shuttle by yourself into hostile territory, Major,” Steve grimaced.

“I don’t like this at all,” said Liara, “there’s too many uncontrolled variables.”

“I get it,” Kaidan sighed, “We should be used to this by now, people. We’ve got almost nothing to go on. This is how we’ve been fighting the whole war. And now that the Reapers are gone, we’d all like to stop working so hard and actually _live_ again, _plan_ again. We don’t have that luxury yet, this is still our survival we’re talking about, and maybe the survival of the entire galaxy too. Again. These creatures… they’re older than anything, and they survived while who knows how many other cycles, however many species, have died. And if Shepard’s report is right, they think the galaxy belongs to them. The only reason they’ve kept to the shadows for so long was the Reapers.

“Do you remember the last time we were here? We didn’t know what to expect crash landing on the surface with no idea that we were about to make one of the biggest discoveries in history. No idea how much… _more_ was right under our noses. Shepard sank to the bottom of the ocean not knowing what to expect, and even though Leviathan had no reason to cooperate, it listened. I’ve got to have faith that they’ll listen again.

“I’m honored to call you my friends. We’re still doing this for the people we love, the memory of everyone who died in this war, and everyone who survived it. For this ship and this crew. The universe is so much bigger than any of us could have imagined when the first Normandy was launched three years ago. And it’s more dangerous. And it’s more… well, it’s more dangerous.” He shook his head lightly, “What matters now is saving whoever we can. And I swear I will do whatever is necessary to protect the peace we fought so hard for.”

He looked meaningfully at Liara as he spoke his last words, and she stared, her eyes narrowing, reading the expression on Kaidan’s face.

The briefing didn’t last much longer, Kaidan ironing out as many of the concrete details as he could before the crew was dismissed to put the plan in action. He caught James by the arm on his way down to the shuttle bay.

“James, how’re you feeling about the mission?”

“I’m ready, Major,” James’ eyes were steely, but there was the tug of a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. Kaidan smiled lightly, activated his omni-tool.

“I’m downloading a program into your omni-tool,” he said in a hushed tone, “Before you and Steve go through the Relay, you upload this into the Reaper, understood?”

“…what’s this code do?”

“It’s our back-up plan. And I need you to upload it, and not ask questions,” Kaidan said. James’ face screwed up into a scowl, but it softened a moment later when Kaidan’s own expression stayed empty, resolved.

“…sure thing, Major.”

“Good,” Kaidan stood with his hand on James’ shoulder for a long moment, eyes turned down on the deck.”

“You shouldn’t be going down there alone.”

“Everyone’s got their part to play, that’s my part.”

“ _Mierda,_ Major!” James huffed, “You’re as _loco_ as the Commander if you think you’re gonna—“

“James,” Kaidan’s voice was hard, and James stopped short, “Everyone’s coming out of this.”

“…you remember that too, Kaidan.”

“Take care of Steve in there, alright?” He clapped James on the shoulder one last time and the Lieutenant stuck out his hand to shake.

“You know it! I’ll make sure Esteban bails in time. Been watching that guy’s back too long to lose him now!”

++

“Steve,” Kaidan walked over to where Cortez was making final adjustments on Kaidan’s shuttle.

“Kaidan, hey,” Steve looked up for only a moment before stooping once again to reinforce a crucial juncture in the thruster assembly, “Since you _won’t_ let me fly you down to the surface, I figured the least I could do is make sure you were taking the better Kodiak. Besides, after crash-landing in the other, I’ve gotten kind of fond of it. I’m pretty busy, but is there something I can do for you?”

“Just trying to get a sense of where the crew’s at,” Kaidan said, watching the staff running about the cargo-bay securing crates and triple-checking emergency venting protocols. Steve peeked up from under the thruster, finally came to his full-height.

“We don’t like you going down alone, but we’re all with you.”

“I don’t like it either, but it helps to know everybody’s ready to do their part of the plan.”

“You can count on us, sir,” Steve looked over Kaidan’s shoulder where James was just adjusting his chest-plate, dropped his voice low, “Come on back in one piece, Kaidan.”

Kaidan shook Steve’s hand.

“Take care of Vega, Steve. You know how he gets around shuttles.”

“Will do,” Steve cracked a smile, “and don’t worry, I won’t let James do the driving.”

Their shuttle was gone soon after, docked with the Alpha Reaper.

Joker flew through the Relay, the Normandy returned to its usual duty rotation. There was an anxiousness, a crackle arcing between the bulkheads.

Kaidan closed out his duty shift with the graveyard officer on deck, bid goodnight to Joker, returned to the Captain’s quarters. Gently thumbed the holo-sculpture emitter on the desk, it had been turned off since the first night Kaidan has opened the package from EDI.

There was a pile of data-pads on the desk too, a half-dozen reports, another fragment of code he’d been modifying for the last week, a letter to Traynor about tending the fish, drafts of plans to be sent to Hackett, a few drafts of how to update his KIA letter for Shepard. Buried under all of them was the Echo Shard, and Kaidan gripped it in his hand, the edge settling into the deep gash in his palm he had never bothered to bandage. His breathing was steady, his eyes dry.

There was a pile of data-pads on the table next to the sculpture: full of snatches of the code he’d just downloaded to James’ omni-tool. He went through, systematically deleting any trace of the simple program from every pad.

Next, he quickly reset and reprogrammed the aquarium VI. He’d been dutifully feeding the fish personally every day since the battle over Earth, but the VI was simple to reprogram. The fish would no longer need him to survive.

Buried under all the half-finished reports and blank data-pads was the Echo Shard, and Kaidan gripped it in his hand. The edge settled into the deep gash in his palm he had never bothered to bandage. The blood had washed off it easily, and it once again looked innocuous.

His breath was steady, his eyes were dry.

There was a click and a gentle hum when the aquarium VI activated. Kaidan sat on the couch and watched the fish race to consume the cloud of food silting to the bottom of the tank, a colorful frenzy in the deep blue.

++

They had a few days of quiet travel, and Kaidan slept on the couch in the loft, and stayed there whenever he wasn’t on duty.

Almost every arrangement had been made. Kaidan had stopped making logs.

Tomorrow, they would arrive in orbit above Despoina.

“Kaidan!” The door to the captain’s cabin opened and Liara stormed in. Kaidan looked up from stitching the hem on a pair of trousers, his eyebrows settling just a little as Liara stood at a distance, slender hands balled into fists.

“What’s the matter, Liara?” He set down his sewing.

“I _know_ what you’re planning!”

“…Hm. I’m not—“

“Don’t even start! I can’t believe you would think you could get a lie past me. _Me!_ And furthermore, I can’t believe you would have so little regard for our friendship—“

“Liara!” he leaned forward on the sofa and Liara took a step back. When he spoke again, his tone was desperate and low, “What I was going to say is that I’m not expecting you to understand or even…” he turned his head and ran a hand over his scalp to the back of his neck.

“Help me understand, if you think you can,” she spat.

“…the galaxy’s not ready, Liara.”

“And just what is that supposed to mean?”

“You know better than most people,” Kaidan’s voice was barely more than a whisper, “The Reaper’s are gone. The war is over. Reconstruction… it can be just as brutal, insidious. The galaxy’s a free-for-all for anyone who hid under a rock with their fortune while our friends _died_ saving their lives.” He rose to his feet slowly, “And now, we’re on a mission to open diplomatic relations with Leviathan.”

“…I don’t…” Liara backed away another step, her eyes flashing.

“We need all the help we can get. Every ally we couldn’t earn before, we’ve _got_ to win them over now. Every ally we convinced, we begged, we tricked onto our side… We… we just can’t take another war. The Reapers were one thing, but who knows who’s waiting to step in now that they’re gone?”

“But _this?”_ Liara shook her head, jaw quivering, “The Council Conventions… they would never approve this! This is the biggest violation in millennia!”

“The Council doesn’t know.”

“You’ve… you’ve kept it a secret from _everyone_? The crew doesn’t know what you’re planning—“

“Everyone has a small part to play. For now, the Normandy is the only ship and the only crew in the universe that could do this. I want to make sure no one can replicate this. No one knows the whole truth except me,” he held his palms up slowly, “and now you.”

"You lied to them!  _You_ said the Reaper corpses were an offering for Leviathan if they wouldn't negotiate!"

Kaidan raised an eyebrow.

"I did."

“You cannot possibly expect me to stand by and watch while the greatest war crime of our time is committed by my _friend!_ ” She screamed, tears running down her face, the conflict playing behind her eyes.

“Liara,” Kaidan lowered his hands, “You needed to know about this. When this is done, I’m not going to hide it. I’m not going to even try to defend myself.”

“You won’t even be around to _see_ it!”

“Please,” he stepped forward, lowering his eyes, “Trust me. Please.” They stood for a moment, Liara’s head shaking in disgust, the twisted expression warring with her own hurt.

“You’re a good man Kaidan. I don’t believe you’re capable of this.”

“Maybe I wasn’t capable of this before,” he said softly, raising his eyes, fixing Liara in his gaze beneath heavy brows, “I hope…” he sighed.

“This is not the way to save the galaxy,” Liara whispered, voice caught behind a sob, “This won’t… absolve your guilt about Shepard.”

“…guilt?” Kaidan smiled ruefully and sank back onto the couch, “You think that’s what this is about?”

“I know you feel guilty about what happened to Shepard.”

“…do you know what Shepard said to me when I visited him in the hospital? He apologized for making ‘the wrong choice’, and I didn’t know what he meant until a few days ago.” Kaidan thumbed at the sneer curling his lip. “Do you believe there are choices… too big for someone to make?”

“Of course,” she retorted, but her voice was softening.

“And in that moment… when you’re faced with a decision like that….”

“Some choices are too big for one person alone. But you’re not alone, Kaidan.” She stepped forward, desperate.

“Shepard was. He was alone,” Kaidan responded simply, “And so… do I feel guilty for not being there with Shepard in the moment when he was… when he was faced with that decision? Yeah. Of course. And if faced with the same choice…”

“…what choice?”

“Nevermind,” Kaidan cleared his throat, “the point is, Shepard’s alive. He’s broken, he’s not the same, but he’s back. And he’s had to make too many tough choices. This one is mine.”

“What choice—“

“I believe that integrity… matters. But there is a breaking-point where your morals and your integrity… where they don’t mean a damn thing against the bodies…” he looked down, “Against the weight of that duty… There are trillions of souls trying to pick up what’s left of their lives. I’m still an Alliance soldier. I swore an oath to the Citadel Council to protect those lives at any cost. Even if the cost is…”

“Is what, Kaidan? Your own soul?” She sighed. When Kaidan looked up, miserable.

“Or Shepard’s.”

His words hung in the air between them, and Liara covered her eyes with her hand. After a moment, she stepped up to Kaidan, slowly lowered herself to his level and rested her hand on his,

“There is no one I trust more than you, Kaidan, my very first friend in this… exciting… devastating adventure. You are strong in ways only your friends can see,” she spoke softly, “Please don’t justify atrocity to yourself. See the truth. Don’t overthink this, or you’ll talk yourself into anything. Trust yourself like I trust you. Like Shepard trusts you.”

“…Ben.” Kaidan’s eyes closed and his head sagged forward against Liara’s forehead.

“He needs you. He needs to know you did what you know is right.”

“I used to think…” Kaidan’s voice was a growl in the back of his throat, his body slumped forward, “…that it maybe was really possible to _really_ win this war, y’know? I know that everyone loses in war, no matter what the war is… everyone loses something. But with an enemy like the Reapers…” his eyes were watery when he turned to Liara, “We united the galaxy, Liara. We all lost so much but… we all won the fight together.”

“There’s never been a peace like this. The way to preserve peace is with _peace_.”

“Part of me wants to believe that… but when I look at Shepard… he’s the evidence. He’ll never be the same and there’s nothing I can do.” His voice broke, heavy blinks disguising glassy eyes. He choked and sputtered awkwardly, uneven and unaccustomed sobs bending his shoulders, “Ben’s just a man, how can he be expected to make… how can he be expected to behave like a god? Why should he feel guilty for…” he trailed off inhaling deeply to attempt to regain his composure.

“I… don’t understand.”

“Part of me believes peace will bring peace. It’s the same part of me that believes there’s a way for Shepard to heal… really heal. There’s something wrong with him, Liara. Voices… he’s indoctrinated… or something. But with the Reapers gone there’s no focus, just chaos…”

“Shepard’s…” Liara blinked, “He’s what?”

“You need to know that too, in case… in case I don’t make it,” Kaidan shivered, “I’m not sure. There’s just something wrong with him. I have to help. And if I can’t help, then…”

“A-alright, Kaidan,” she swallowed and placed a hand on his shoulder while he shook. “Listen… to that part of you that still believes that Shepard… can heal. The part that still believes in peace—“

“—It’s the same part of me that believes that whatever change sentient life goes through… it _has_ to be on our terms… or it’s meaningless,” he cleared his throat and squared his shoulders, carefully removing his hand from Liara’s gentle grasp, “We’ve earned the right. Nothing is going to remake the universe for us anymore. It’s time we prove ourselves. To the Reapers. To Leviathan.”

Liara pulled away and stood up, eyes impassive.

“You don’t have the right to make the decision on how _we_ prove ourselves.”

“I know. No one does… but we’re here. I’m going to do what needs to be done. And I haven’t given up hope that we can do it the right way,” Kaidan breathed at last. Liara touched the side of his face gently, shaking her head.

“I do trust you, Kaidan. But I won’t be part of this.”

“I know.”

She rose to her feet and turned away, arms crossed over her chest as she hesitated in front of the fish tank.

“You… reactivated the aquarium VI?” She asked, eyes tracking a particularly colorful salarian transplant as it coiled about the bottom of the tank. Kaidan’s eyes were closed, fingertips making hard circles on his temples.

“Yeah,” he muttered softly.

“They’re looking very healthy. Hadn’t you decided you were going to feed them by hand?”

“That’s right.”

Liara turned from the aquarium and stepped lightly up the stairs, speaking over her shoulder.

“When I visited the Normandy before Shepard went through the Omega-4 relay, all the fish had died. Shepard said he’d gone through at least four tanks worth. He kept forgetting to feed them.”

“Shepard had bigger things to worry about,” Kaidan’s tone was hollow.

“So do you. Still. You found the time.”

“Just taking care of them for Shepard,” Kaidan winced at the sound the cabin door made as it opened. Liara’s voice drifted back into the room, a bit choked.

“You’ve always taken better care of Shepard than he’s taken of himself. Don’t make him do this alone.”

The door sighed closed, and Liara was gone. Kaidan sank back into the cushion clutching at his head, a low groan in the back of his throat ending sharply in a muffled cry between his teeth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Putting the last few puzzle pieces in place, saying what needs to be said before the end.


	55. The Difference between This Time and Last Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Normandy arrives at Despoina, Kaidan makes final preparations and says his final goodbyes before leaving the ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for being patient: I was on such a roll! Deciding whether or not to split a future chapter in two really held me up. This fic might end up being 61 chapters... That's much less round.

There was an uneasy quiet throughout the shift, most of the crew either trying to sleep before the big day tomorrow or else absorbed in their work stations. The Starboard Observation lounge was quiet and dark, and Kaidan stayed a moment to gaze out the window, touch the scar above his lip, sit on the couch… But he didn’t linger.

Crossing between the two lounges, he stopped at the Memorial Wall, eyes silently scanning over every name. Even Shepard’s, still hanging in the center of the wall.

The door to the Port Observation Lounge slid open and the sound of Joker chuckling to himself at the bar spilled out. There was a buzz of people talking on a data-pad in his hand, and he burst out laughing again before looking over his shoulder.

“Hahaha, oh, hey there, Major.”

“Jeff, hey.”

Kaidan scooted the other barstool along the counter so he could lean back against the bulkhead, facing Joker and sitting beside him at the same time. Jeff watched his pad intently, occasionally looking up to catch Kaidan’s gaze.

“Starting to realize how crazy going down to see the Great Old Ones alone is, Major?”

“No,” Kaidan chuckled, “You up late pissed _you’re_ not the one flying the Reaper?”

“Ha! I don’t think so. I don’t care how dead they look on the outside, I’m not gonna be happy till they all get towed into the sun. Besides,” Joker turned down the volume on his pad, “this is _my_ ship. They’re gonna have to pry me out of that chair.”

“What’re you drinking?”

“Coflow. Tiptree’s bumper crop. Makes a shit alcohol, but reminds me of home. Found a bottle behind the bar when I was spending a lot more time in here.” Joker raised the tumbler to his lips.

“Hmm,” Kaidan leaned over the bar, seizing the first bottle his hands came upon, hauling it back to the bar top, “This it? It’s almost empty.”

“Yeah well, what can I say, I spent a _lot_ of time in here.”

“Guess I’m lucky I get to try some before it’s gone,” he poured two fingers into a clean glass, took a test sip, “Mmm… it’s… ummm.”

“It’s shit.”

“Yeah, it’s shit.”

“Yeah, well, it’s the best Tiptree has to offer. Before the Reapers turned the colony to a smoking pile, that is.” Joker laughed again at something on his data-pad.

“Maybe with a mixer?” Kaidan ran his tongue over the film the drink left on his teeth.

“Nope. I won’t think any less of you if you can’t finish what you poured,” he smirked.

“Challenge accepted,” he took another drink.

“Hell _I_ almost gave the stuff up when EDI broke down the chemicals left over from distilling. The grain’s a super food, but distill it and some crazy shit gets in,” he finished his glass and reached for the bottle, “It’s that distinctive Tiptree taste.”

“I think it’s growing on me,” Kaidan rasped, stifling a cough.

Joker wet the bottom of his glass with the pour, little more than a swallow, but the bottle teetered on the rim of the glass for a second before Joker sighed, capping the bottle and pushing it aside. The sitcom audience applauded and laughed on Jeff’s data-pad, but he didn’t look down.

“I’m really glad Shepard’s gonna be okay,” Jeff mumbled into his glass, “And I’m really happy for the two of you.”

“Thanks, Jeff.”

“And I’ll be up here, tomorrow, waiting for the signal to swing in and pick you up once you’re done talking some sense into the creatures from the deep.”

“I know.”

“Although… if it takes you three years to come back… it’ll be kind of a pain in the ass is all.”

The two laughed and Jeff finished his swallow of alcohol, Kaidan throwing back a swig himself.

“I need to go down there alone,” he murmured, slowly exhaling the scent of the liquor.

“You don’t need to tell me that.” Joker spun his glass on the countertop. “I’ve been hauling Shepard’s ass around the galaxy for long enough now to not need anwers. I don’t get the hero-complex, but I sure as shit know I’m not gonna be able to argue about it.”

“Well good,” Kaidan activated his omni-tool, sent a file to Jeff, “Then I guess I can trust you with this.”

“…what is this?” Joker asked, eyebrow raised, surveying the file on his own omni-tool.

“It’s a letter for Shepard. My omni-tool is set to send it automatically if my heart stops, but I’m not sure what the signal strength is going to be like down there. I want to make sure he gets it if something happens to me.”

“…but we’re all in this thing, you’re coming back or none of us are coming back.” Joker shook his head, “You should leave this in the Relay buoy.”

“No. You do your best flying and no one’s going to be in any danger at all. The Normandy’ll be back on the other side of the Relay by the time anyone detects my shuttle.”

“…alright. Don’t make me deliver this letter, Kaidan.”

Kaidan nodded firmly.

“If we’re lucky, Shepard will never have to hear that message.”

Joker nodded, stared for a moment at the icon of the message on his omni-tool, finally his omni-tool faded, but he stared across the bar at the bulkhead rather than looking back at the sitcom still playing through on his pad.

“You still watching the shows EDI left you?” Kaidan asked, pointing at the data-pad.

“Oh. Yeah. I mean, there’s enough funny stuff to last me the rest of my life. It’s good to be able… to know she picked them out for me.”

Kaidan drummed his fingers on the bar for a moment, then gingerly slid the pad from between Joker’s palms, pausing the comedy and entering a few keystrokes into the interface.

“When you found EDI’s things, did you happen to come across any files with this extension?” he handed the pad back to Jeff, who furrowed his eyebrows and ran a search.

“Umm, yeah. There’s… whoa. There’s… millions of these,” he looked up at Kaidan, who laughed.

“That many?” Kaidan’s snicker turned into a great bellowing laugh, Jeff screwing up his face to see Kaidan practically slapping his knee, “She sure didn’t waste any time when she took up a hobby, huh?”

“What? What are they? Some kind of holographic file.”

Kaidan sobered, his smile turning bittersweet. Swallowing the last of his Coflow, he stood, pulling EDI’s holo-emitter from his pocket. He placed it gently on the bar next to Joker.

“This will explain things. I talked to Tali,” he rested a hand on Jeff’s shoulder and turned to leave, “They just… they might be a solid foundation.”

++

They were an hour out from Despoina, and the cargo bay was empty of personnel except for Kaidan. Once his shuttle was gone, the whole bay would be locked down to quarantine him on his return: weapons removed from lockers, force-fields in place, the works.

Kaidan had stripped to his boxers and shivered, sitting on the bench next to his locker and rubbing the cold out of his feet. James’ weights had had to be sealed away. The lockers had been emptied of all weapons. Steve had locked the armory console. The Fenris-Mech that had been patrolling the cargo bay, sniffing chem-trails, was now patrolling the mess. He was alone.

He slipped into his armor’s thermal layer, the heaviest available, and spread his armor out on the bench. Boots, greaves, chest plate, gauntlets. He had dressed up to the waist when the airy silence was broken by the lift door opening.

“Now, you didn’t really think you were going down there without a team, did you?”

“Garrus!” Kaidan grinned over his shoulder even as his eyebrows threatened to weigh down his expression. Garrus and Tali, already equipped, leaned against the lockers.

“Garrus and I were talking,” Tali bumped Garrus’ hips with her own, “and we decided. The three of us have been together from the start. We’re coming with you.”

“I admit, it’s a crazy plan,” Garrus crossed his arms, “And good for you for going the diplomacy route, but in case things get heavy, I figured you could use a really big gun.”

“And maybe someone who can actually fix the shuttle after whatever dampening field Leviathan used to make it crash last time,” Tali’s tone was thick.

“Hmm, hadn’t thought about that,” said Garrus.

“Too busy thinking through your scope, I bet,” she teased.

“Actually, I’ve been distracted by other things lately,”

“Oh shut-up!” Tali slapped Garrus’ chest, laughing.

Kaidan picked up his chest plate, hands trembling, then a moment later set it back on the bench.

“I… I can’t thank you guys enough. But you’re not coming with me.”

“I don’t really think it’s negotiable at this point,” Garrus replied.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Kaidan said softly, “The biggest threat from Leviathan is it getting into my mind, killing me, or enslaving me. Two extra guns isn’t going to make a difference, and I’m not going to risk two of my friends.”

“The whole thing doesn’t make sense, Kaidan,” Tali urged, “We know what we’re doing, we’ve been through a lot together. We’re going to finish this.” She laid her hand on Kaidan’s arm.

“You could use a friends or two down there, Kaidan,” Garrus supplied.

Kaidan took a deep breath, closing his eyes.

“I could, I’m not going to lie. I’m scared. But… the mission has to come first, and I need the two of you up here.”

Tali shook her head,

“I’ve been working on bypasses to prevent Leviathan from shutting down our engines—“

“That’s why I need you on the Normandy, Tali,” Kaidan interrupted, gently taking Tali’s shoulders, “If something happens… with the Collectors… with Leviathan… Adams needs you in the Engine Room to make sure everyone gets out of here safe.”

“Except _you_!” Tali retorted.

“I’m coming back,” Kaidan watched the sparks behind her mask, “But just in case… you’re the only one I trust to reverse-engineer those holo-sculpture algorithms… if there’s a chance we can put those memories back into EDI’s program, just so… she knows a little bit about who she was, we owe her that—“

“Just,” Tali shook her head and wriggled away from Kaidan’s arms, turning away “just stop talking.” Her voice was choked, and she leaned against a locker.

“And Garrus,” Kaidan stared into Garrus’ eyes then lightly nodded in Tali’s direction, “…I want to get back to Shepard…”

Garrus’ eyes narrowed and he shook his head, Tali missed the exchange.

“ _When_ I get back,” Kaidan continued, “I might be under Leviathan’s control. I need you here when I get back, Garrus. Keeping me quarantined—“

“You don’t need me for that, that’s what we have the shielding for—“

“—recognizing whether or not I’m myself, doing what needs to be done if I’m not.”

“…you’re really not going to take us,” it wasn’t a question, and Garrus crossed his arms. Tali turned back and stood lightly at Garrus side.

“Okay,” she said at last, “Then let’s get this over with,”

“Mm. One last ride.” Garrus put forth his hand and Kaidan took it.

“We’ve said that before,” he smiled.

“It doesn’t feel like it did before Earth,” Tali said softly.

“Maybe we’re all just getting used to saving the galaxy,” Garrus draped an arm over her shoulder.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that, _keelah_ , I hope I don’t. That’s too much pressure.”

“Yeah. Maybe we all… we’ve just got a better sense of what’s at stake. Personally,” Kaidan looked up, and Tali slipped her hand around Garrus’ waist, pulling him close.

“Alright then, I suppose I’ll head back to engineering and start optimizing the stealth systems,” the heavy rasp was back in her voice as she stepped up to Kaidan and threw her arms around his neck, “Come back safe, Kaidan.”

“I… will.”

“You’ve got a lot of people who care about you—you idiot—more than you care about yourself.”

Her hands lingered on his shoulders before she turned and made for the lift.  Garrus stood another moment, watching Tali leave.

“Listen, Kaidan, do what you think you have to do to save the galaxy,” he lifted Kaidan’s chest plate and handed it over, “But for Shepard, the universe starts and ends with you.”

Kaidan fit the armor over his chest, Garrus walking behind to help him lock the pressure seals, clapped him on the shoulder.

“I’m ready,” Kaidan smiled grimly.

“Mm,” Garrus’ mandibles opened into a wicked grin, “Spectre Kaidan Alenko, ready to muse at Leviathan until they beg for mercy.”

“I just hope our main guns are _finally_ calibrated in case we run into that Collector fleet,” Kaidan smirked.

“When you’re down there you just might be wishing you had a big gun with you,” Garrus laughed back over his shoulder before the lift-door closed.

“Not to worry,” Kaidan said under his breath, securing his gauntlets, “I’m bringing a very big gun.”

++

The Normandy rocketed out of FTL, Despoina a pale gray marble at 12 o’clock low. Scans immediately highlighted the force of Collector ships swarming in orbit around the planet.

“Well… it’s a roach motel,” Joker said, double-checking the ship’s thermal output, “No offense.”

“None taken,” Javik watched the screen impassive, arms folded across his chest.

“Are we going to have an opening?” Kaidan leaned over Joker’s chair, eyes skimming the data.

“I’ll get you in, Major, that’s not gonna be a problem.”

“Look, there!”

The Normandy rolled 60 degrees, as they slipped undetected past a Collector listening post. In orbit around the planet, several of the monolithic Collector vessels were docked around a huge super-structure, like the skeleton of a giant creature. The sheer size of the empty ribs dwarfed the smaller ships in the fleet. It was one of many such construction in orbit.

“They’re building something, some kind of ship?” said Kaidan.

“They’re huge, almost 10 km.”

“Chariots,” Javik growled, “they are having their slaves construct a means to leave this planet and colonize the galaxy once again.”

“Huh, who would’ve thought they’d be so on-the-ball with this galactic domination business after burying their heads in the sand for hundreds of million years,” Jeff rolled his eyes, “Do you suppose as kids, they all sat around at slumber parties asking each other ‘what’s the first thing _you_ would do to conquer the galaxy?’”

“This is not a joke, human.”

“Give it some time. Couple centuries, everything turns into a joke. I figure why wait.”

“I have lived for fifty thousand years, time has not made a joke out of me.”

“…you’re really begging for it, y’know?”

“But why would they be leaving the planet now?” Kaidan asked, stepping in.

“They wish to direct the assault?” Javik offered.

“No,” Kaidan squinted at the data on the structures, “That’s not their style. None of the Leviathan on the surface have ever left this planet, they don’t need to, they can see what they need to see with their artifacts. They’ve been living in hiding forever, doesn’t seem like them to start leading the charge now.”

“Maybe they’re moving?” Joker said, “We found where they’re hiding, now that the Reapers are gone, they’re thinking they need to go into hiding again?”

“They have a fleet that could crush what is left of the galaxy’s forces,” Javik said, “But they have only taken control of a handful of systems,”

“All strategically placed, but all defensive… hide first. Then take-over.”

“They are still thinking like prey,” Javik sneered, “they are not fit to be conquerors.”

“Major, couple of well-placed shots with the Thanix canon,” Joker said softly, “We could take out those constructs before the Collector ships could even rally.”

“No.”

“We pop back to Omega, get enough weaponry for an orbital bombardment—“

“The creatures live at the bottom of the sea, human! The whole of this sector does not have the firepower!”

“Well, it’s better than asking them nicely if they’d mind _not_ subjugating the galaxy! Or… or offering them a couple Reapers so they can do it faster!” the humor had drained from Joker’s voice.

“Don’t worry,” Kaidan gripped Jeff’s shoulder, “We’re ready for this.”

“So if you’re not back in an hour, you want me to take out those orbitals?”

“No.”

“…you’re the boss,” Joker said coldly.

“Drop me off. Pick up James and Steve, then book it to the Relay if you haven’t heard from me.”

“Alright,” Jeff sighed, “We’re twenty-six minutes from my navpoint, assuming none of the patrols drift into my trajectory. Better get down and start warming up the shuttle, Major.”

“Keep everyone safe, Jeff.”

“You just worry about yourself,” Jeff looked up from under the brim of his hat, “…I’ll be holding onto that holo-sculpture for you till you get back.”

Kaidan nodded, and Jeff concentrated on his approach vector. Kaidan made eye-contact with Javik, gestured out onto the gangway. When the door to the cock-pit had slid closed, Kaidan removed the Echo Shard from his pocket and handed it to Javik, who regarded it skeptically.

“Here,” Kaidan said, “I want to give this back.”

“It was a gift to the Commander,” Javik’s voice was quiet, “It belongs to you, now, more than it does to me. It is for your people and your cycle. Once you have disposed of the Leviathan threat, I will go to be with my people in the Cronian Nebula. Shepard is the avatar of this cycle, my vengeance is complete.”

“Javik,” Kaidan placed the Shard in his hand, “unless you show someone else what we saw in that vision of the Keeper, you and I are the only two people in the galaxy capable of re-opening the Citadel, of getting galactic civilization back on its feet again. This cycle… doesn’t need revenge anymore. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need you. There’s a place for you. Whether you choose to go to the Citadel yourself, or you show Liara that vision, you still have a part to play. Either way, this is still your story.”

Javik’s fingers closed around the Echo Shard.

++

When Kaidan arrived in the cargo bay, his shuttle was already fully powered and warmed up.

_“ETA to drop, two minutes, Major,_ ” Joker’s voice sounded in his comms. Kaidan stepped aboard the shuttle, looking in the back for whoever had powered the craft, but the shuttle was as empty as the cargo bay. He sat at the flight controls, Kaidan found a small square of flash-fabricated film.

It was a picture, surely taken by Glyph when he had been instructed to ‘get candids’ the night of Shepard’s party. Liara had been holding onto the pictures from that night. After the group shot, the majority of the party had drifted back to drinks and games and dancing. Kaidan had just come back from looking at the group shot on the vidscreen, laughing at the awkward way Shepard was watching him in the photo, at the way Kaidan himself was bent over about to guffaw when Glyph grabbed the shot.

He found Shepard still sitting on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, one arm on the backrest, eyes soft from drink and too much trying to fit in and socialize. He had looked up at Kaidan, trying to mirror the other man’s amusement. He had only managed a half-smile. His walls were down, not gathering new data or trying to be whatever the crowd needed. He was just Ben.

There was an invisible sphere of isolation around Shepard, people would walk through the room and past his couch and would never say a word. The only one who could have noticed him at that moment had been Kaidan.

Kaidan had popped the bubble, sat hip to hip and thigh to thigh, inviting Shepard’s arm to slide down and tight around his shoulders. And they had been alone in the room together. Kaidan teased, Shepard had tried to fire back with witty banter, the two men’s whiskey-soaked laughter had ebbed, and Kaidan had his hand on Shepard’s chest beneath the leather jacket, his other arm cradling the small of his back.

After a long moment of meaningful eye-contact, they had both moved to lay their head on the other’s shoulder, and their foreheads knocked together.

Each man started to chuckle at the same moment, trying to come together in a kiss had only stoked their laughter, both belting out loud. Wide, open-mouthed smiles and tired eyes squinted closed, hands grasping at each other’s clothes.

It was at that moment that Glyph had snapped the picture. Shepard and Kaidan, alone together in a crowd, kissing and laughing on a couch Kaidan had bought for Shepard. Because it was comfortable. Because it was a house-warming present.

Kaidan turned the thin film square over, where was printed a single word:

_‘Home’._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Kaidan and Leviathan.


	56. The Difference between the Sea and the Sky, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Shepard lying in a hospital on Earth, tortured by his choice on the Citadel and the toll of all the attempts to indoctrinate him, the Normandy has been sent to Despoina to negotiate with Leviathan. The ancient beings have begun seizing control of the galaxy using their enthralling artifacts, now that their only threat has been defeated.
> 
> Kaidan Alenko, in command of the Normandy, hopes to make peace. But he has crafted a secret plan should peaceful negotiations prove impossible. Kaidan places a picture of Shepard on the dash, and flies alone to the surface to confront the creators of the Reapers...

Kaidan’s Kodiak shuddered through the upper atmosphere of 2181 Despoina, the wafer thin layers of the mesosphere burning away in wisps of pale fire. The gravity plating noiselessly disengaged, and the planet loomed below. With a touch on the haptic interface, the virtual windows activated and flooded the cabin with light. The cloud bank below sat like a blanket of dirty snow wrapped around the entire planet. But in the midst of it, the cloud layer was bright, then dimmed to an ever darkening gray, and the shuttle rocked in the turbulence.

And the sea was below him now as a black sheet spread out to an arcing horizon in every direction, waves like silken threads blown along a pavement. In the distance, a gauzy curtain of rain made the entire western horizon indistinct: the sea curling up into the sky, the sky pouring down into the sea; an endless cycle on a world where the mountain-clouds of great oceans forever obscured the stars. Instead…

Already from the height, the half-sunken starships were apparent, littering the top of the water. And yet, the way they sat, it might have been any starship graveyard out in the expanse of space. The ocean was deep and dark as the heavens, every whitecap a star, flashing and burning out in an instant. The universe racing by, only the headstones of dead starships constant.

Kaidan used the thrusters to slow the descent, tipped the nose of the Kodiak down to prepare for his dive. He spared his eyes a moment from his haptic interface as the glow caught the photograph stuck to the console: Shepard and Kaidan smiling at one another, heedless of everyone else.

“I promised you, Shepard.”

A blue arc flashed around the hull of the shuttle, the haptics sparking: the Kodiak spiraled in the air, no longer supported by its mass lowering fields. Kaidan swore. Punched the thrusters—without the mass effect, they were powerless to arrest the fall.

The shuttle plummeted to the sea like a wounded bird.

“ _Kaidan!”_ it was Tali’s voice through the comms, scratched out and interrupted, “ _We’re monitoring you from orbit… detected pulse… think I can…”_

“Tali? Tali! What are you guys still doing here? Get out of orbit! Retreat to the Relay!” he could keep the shuttle from spinning, but there was no way to prevent the crash, “Every Collector in the system’s going to know you’re here.”

“… _about to engage Collectors… be quick… compensate for the pulse… adjust… output by… percent…”_

The comms went dead, signal swallowed by the storm just as the Kodiak plunged into the water.

“Tali? Tali!” there was the sound of water lapping against the side of the shuttle as it bobbed for a moment before sinking, “Can you hear me? Get out of orbit! Do _not_ engage with the Collectors! Get _out_ of here! Tali?”

He was alone.

“…I guess the only place to go now is down,” he whispered to the photograph. The thrusters allowed him, after a few tries, to mostly right the ship and cruise down into the darker depths against the Kodiak’s own buoyancy before cutting out completely. After that, Kaidan buckled his safety belt, and the weight of the Kodiak’s engines pulled the ship vertical in the water, leaving him staring directly up into whatever dim light filtered down. The light was already fading.

“I’m on a schedule here,” he whispered again. He unbelted from his seat to hang down into the main cabin, retrieved his helmet from where it was stowed in a gear compartment, slid it over his head. The sound of the ship adjusting to the pressure around it mingled with the creak of his hardsuit, stretching the joints at odd angles to clamber back up to the cockpit and into his pilot’s chair.

Kaidan adjusted a latch on his helmet, activating his re-breather. In a few interface slides, he had vented the air from the inside of the shuttle, and it groaned as it plummeted down.

He switched off the lights one by one, giving the shuttle over to emergency power until only the orange haptic interface illuminated the picture stuck to the console.

It was a long, quiet descent.

The shuttle shuddered, the engines settling on solid ground. Kaidan opened his eyes, the blackness out the virtual windows lightening when the Kodiak tipped forward to rest at last on its belly, perched on a ledge above a pale blue light.

Kaidan waited.

“…come on… you know I’m here…”

The minutes dragged on.

“I don’t have time for this… come on. _Come on_!”

Kaidan checked the system clock on his omni-tool, counting down to James and Steve’s arrival in orbit with the Alpha Reaper… and there was his KIA letter to Shepard, prepared, ready to send. A copy of the one he had given to Joker to deliver…

“I’m trying Shepard, I really am…”

The shuttle quaked, wisps of mud disturbed by currents in the water. A creature rose up from the depths, darker than the crush of water above it, beads of bioluminescence running along the length of its body: the shape of a Reaper in flesh and stony plates.

Leviathan.

Its body jittered, releasing a torrent of bubbles each time its plates shifted, adjusting for the pressure differential, limbs spreading against the water until it held buoyant, staring down at the tiny ship settled onto the rocks.

Kaidan swallowed when the haptic interface flickered.

He pitched forward,

Collapsed onto a cold surface. He was alone in an empty blackness now, hands grasping at his air-filtration tube.

**“Breathe.”**

The tube was in place, his suit was not damaged, but his helmet was gone. He gulped in the air at last, his body shivering. When he stood, the ground beneath him rippled as if it were liquid. Amidst the darkness, Kaidan stood in the center of a pale glow, and a figure stepped out to meet him. It had the form of Doctor Ann Bryson.

The two regarded each other.

“My name is Kaidan Alenko, I’m here on behalf of the Citadel Council and the Systems Alliance.”

“ **We know you, Spectre,”** came the deep thunder of a voice from Ann’s mouth, **“You were with the Other, the Shepard**.”

“Yes. I was with him when we found you on this planet. I was with him when the Reapers were defeated.”

**“Your presence in his mind…”** Ann idly regarded a bottle of Peruvian whiskey in her hand, **“You were of great importance to him. I have observed your actions with him since the first. The destruction of Sovereign. The Construction of the Crucible. But your kind is not allowed here.”**

Kaidan shuddered, and Ann walked over to a table which came into being. It was like the weapon-mod workbench aboard the Normandy.

“I’m here on behalf on the Citadel Council, to thank you for your assistance in defeating the Reapers,”  he twitched again as Ann selected a diagnostic tool from the bench, “…and to ask for your help… for Commander Shepard.”

**“Help,”** Khaleesa al-Jilani turned away from the workbench, **“The gratitude of lesser races is irrelevant. We have subdued the enemy which had denied us our claim. We have not aided your kind in ending the harvest, we have used you as tools to accomplish our own purpose.”**

“You...” Kaidan trembled, bit his lip, eyes fighting to remain open, “…Shepard… since he met with you, when he was fighting the Reapers he got exposed to an indoctrination field. You use something like it to control other races with your artifacts, don’t you? You’ve got to know some way to counteract the indoctrination. I need to know how to help him…”

Councillor Valern held the diagnostic tool, now.

**“This matter does not concern us.”**

“Shepard saved you. Saved the galaxy!”

**“Shepard breached the darkness, exposed us before the Reapers.”**

“Then he _defeated_ the Reapers! For you as much as for any of us. Now he needs your help.”

**“We are not like the lesser races. Over countless cycles we have endured. We are stronger than our creations,”** the voice was behind Kaidan now, and he turned, coming face to face with Admiral Xen, **“If Shepard had not led the Reapers to this place, we would have survived as we continued to survive. If not Shepard, another. Our patience is infinite.”**

“That’s bullshit!” Kaidan spat, “then why let him go in the first place? You told him then that he had a chance to defeat the Reapers!”

**“The time was at hand for our ascension, to defeat our enemy. For the thrall races to once again know our dominance.”**

“That’s why you’ve seized control of so many Council worlds?”

**“Before your species had evolved from a single cluster of cells,”** Admiral Hackett looked up, and Kaidan followed his gaze: primordial cells hovering in the pale light, each dividing and spiraling out as complete worlds, mitochondria becoming starships, **“We possessed the worlds you now call your home. We have only taken what was and has always been our own. The lesser races will again service us.”**

“No,” Kaidan turned away, but Admiral Hackett was standing before him still, “We’re still here and we’re not going away. Shepard showed everyone that! The only way we survive the Reapers is together. We stopped the… the _harvest_ together! You’ve gotta see that!”

**“Your affection for the Shepard is great,”** Col Vedirus held up his hand, a pair of N7 dog-tags hanging between slender figures, **“But you misunderstand his usefulness, his purpose.”**

“Get…” Kaidan stuttered as a low table appeared, two glasses of whiskey abandoned there, “get out of my mind… those memories are private…”

**“Your mind belongs to me,”** Col’s eyes were deep and black, **“Though you resist. When the Shepard came before us, he did not hide as you hide. He opened his mind to us easily. But it is irrelevant. He was a singular being. The people of this cycle followed the Shepard because he was powerful, and the Reapers feared him. If he has not proven to you the potency of a universe united under a superior being, you will not understand.”**

“What? No, Shepard never wanted—doesn’t _want_ —to rule anyone! He brought people together because they understood what he wanted was right, that it was the only way to survive!”

**“His motives are immaterial, his success in defeating the Reapers is the result of his confidence, not his motives. We allowed him to leave to accomplish the task, to prepare our galaxy. He was our harbinger.”**

“Then… then tell me how to heal what the Reapers did to him and I’ll bring him back here, he’ll tell you. If Shepard’s such an open book, you’ll _see_ why he did what he did, and why it _matters_ what his motives were!”

**“His purpose is complete,”** Dr. Ann Bryson turned her back to Kaidan and stared into a microscope imager on a workbench where the coffee-table had stood, **“I have searched his mind, and I apprehend his essence. He has accomplished what we allowed him to do, and now the universe is prepared to receive us once again as its masters.”**

“People don’t… people don’t _have_ just one purpose, goddammit!” Kaidan stepped forward, but the workbench was gone.

**“The Shepard did not hide his thoughts from me,”** Col Vedirus sat stiffly in a chair, the same chair Kaidan usually chose in the Starboard Observation Lounge, **“What do you believe you can hide? You doubt there is value in claiming Shepard’s motivations are correct. ”**

“The artifacts… it’s like indoctrination…” Kaidan grit his teeth against the strain, “Taking control of somebody takes a long time, it’s subtle. If you do it too quickly… it kills the subject…”

**“Correct. Your species is primitive and fragile. But make no mistake, I will kill you,”** Col paused for a moment, a table appeared: Shepard’s chess board in the center, **“’Just five minutes, a quick drink, then I’ll go…’”**

“Stay out of my head!” Kaidan barked, voice cracking as he doubled over in pain.

**“These thoughts are unguarded in your mind. I will use them to know what you are hiding.”**

Kaidan grimaced, coughed once—

Blood spattered the inside of his helmet. The soft glow of the haptic interface burning his eyes for a moment. His nose was bleeding violently. Outside the shuttle, the Leviathan wheeled back as if startled, then lurched forward, looming above the ship. One spindly limb hammered down into the hull.

Kaidan was shaken free of his seat by the impact, the ship distending, ceiling crumpling in on the cabin. Then the hull groaned and a needle thin stream of water erupted in the aft compartment. Water was already rising in the cockpit by the time Kaidan bolted up and stepped for the aft compartment before turning around, snatching the photograph off the console and tucking it into a sealed pocket in his hard suit.

“I’m sorry Shepard… I tried…”

His biotics flared, projecting a field through the hull rupture, a finger in the dyke, the weight of the ocean trying to push itself down through a pin prick. A thick glob of blood trickled from his nose to his chin, and his eyes squinted from the pain. The water on the floor of the shuttle sloshed about Kaidan’s feet—already up to his knees—and he scrambled for the hull repair patch, thrusting it where the water came gushing in.

The shield was designed to keep the pressure of the ship from exploding outward, trying to keep the ocean out would tax the power-source before long.

His biotics flickered.

He was back in the darkness.

“No!”

—and he was lying in the water on the floor of the Kodiak, scrambling to his knees, trying in vain to wipe the blood from his visor by pawing the outside of his helmet. Two more creatures had risen up from the deep.

**“Your mind belongs to me.”**

His helmet was gone, he was alone again in the pale glow. When he raised his head, David Anderson stood before him, and in the shadows, another figure… EDI?

No, a blue band across her eyes: Eva Core.

**“You show great resilience,”** Anderson spoke, and the other figure was suddenly gone, **“To break free of my control demonstrates force of will. Even so close to your own death,”** Anderson reached out his hand and Kaidan made to take it, but in the palm of the Admiral’s hand was a tiny shuttle, like the Kodiak model in Shepard’s cabin, but crumpled in the center, **“You are not willing to reveal your thoughts to me. ‘People near death say…’”**

“Seems like…” Kaidan struggled to his feet, “you’re not having much trouble pulling out the memories you need.”

Anderson placed the mangled Kodiak into a model case, beside the Citadel, the geth cruiser, the Normandy.

**“You will remain with us, serving our needs. Through you, we will understand the lesser races which now inhabit the galaxy.”**

“No! You need to listen to me, the people of this galaxy just _proved_ they’re capable of something no one else has ever been able to do. They’ve earned the right to live the lives they want! And Shepard’s earned your help!”

**“They have earned nothing. They continue to repeat the mistake which doomed our first thralls. It is inevitable the cycle will repeat, though there will be no harvest. It is necessary that we should rule again for the benefit of all. My kind provided prosperity and safety for the lesser races for millions of years before the cycles began. The universe bent to our will, and through a beneficent rule, the thrall species grew strong. This is the way it will be again.”**

“Maybe that was the way it used to be, but everything has changed! Work _with_ the inhabitants of the galaxy! You have things you can teach us, and we have things we can teach you!” Kaidan grit his teeth as Anderson pushed a button on the aquarium, feeding Shepard’s fish.

**“We are the apex race. It is natural that the lesser races service our needs. In exchange, we will offer stability for the first time in countless cycles.”** Anderson stood far apart, now, on the raised dais of the Citadel Council, still clad in admiralty blue. **“The Shepard prepared the galaxy for our rule, and you will remain with us to complete his work.”**

“The people want their freedom,” Kaidan cried, walking up to Anderson, the illusion of distance shattered. “They’ll never submit to your rule. Neither would Shepard. And neither will I.”

**“It is not a choice.”**

“I can’t let you enslave the galaxy!”

**“You will serve as our agent for reclaiming what is ours.”**

“I’ll die first.”

**“That, too, is not your choice,”** came the voice from behind him, and Anderson was gone. When he turned, a tall figure stepped out of the shadows, a turian with crooked mandibles and an uneven gait, his neck bulged at an odd angle so that his head lay against his shoulder. Kaidan started back, eyes wide.

**“When the Shepard breached the darkness,”** Commander Vyrnnus said, broken neck straightening, vertebrae snapping back into place until he looked down at Kaidan, **“He came before us empty handed, but demonstrated a confidence we could not deny. His mind was not guarded as yours is. We understood him. He knew the need of survival. My kind have survived where unfathomable others have perished. You do not understand him. We allowed him to leave because it suited our will, not for respect or to play politics with lesser races**. **Because the Reapers pursued us, we considered the Shepard dangerous. He himself was not a threat to us, and did not hope to threaten.**

**“But you,”** Vyrnnus stepped closer, empty eyes staring down on Kaidan. There was even the knife sheathed along his wrist. **“You have come prepared for violence.”**

Kaidan remained where he stood, fists balled at his sides. His shoulders bowed under the weight of an invisible pressure.

“I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to save what this galaxy just fought for. If you really knew Shepard, you would know that,” he spat.

**“We are more than you can understand. We are beyond your threats. But your resistance impresses us, and so you will remain here.”**

“I’m leaving this planet,” Kaidan snarled, jaw trembling, Vyrnnus tall above him, “And you’re gonna tell me how to help Shepard, and you’re gonna release control of every planet and starship you’ve got under your thumb. Now.”

**“We will seize your vessel, enslave your crew. They are of no threat to us.”**

“The plan’s already in motion…” Kaidan grimaced.

> _The plan he hadn’t told to the crew._
> 
> _Only Kaidan’s biometrics could send the signal to call off the Beta and Gamma Reapers, and only from outside of the system—beyond the control of Leviathan._
> 
> _Garrus guarding the shuttle bay: tasked with shooting Kaidan immediately if Kaidan exhibited any sign of being enthralled._
> 
> _Without Kaidan ordering off the operation…_

Vyrnnus brow rose again as his control was shaken. The two stood facing one another, Kaidan squinting through the pain that drilled through his skull. He stilled his breaths deliberately. Closed his eyes…

And he opened his mind to Leviathan.

> _The conversation with Leviathan had dragged on too long: Kaidan urging the ancient race to join with galactic civilization, then demanding the release of the annexed worlds._
> 
> _Perhaps Kaidan was already dead, or enthralled._
> 
> _Then, out of nowhere, a Reaper appeared, Cortez cutting to subluminal speeds so close to the planet as to allow the Collectors no response time. The shuttle slipped out from beneath the tendrils in reentry, and the Alpha Reaper careened limply through the atmosphere once Cortez and Vega had abandoned it—the Normandy sweeping them up before the Reaper had even crashed to the surface of the water, sheering through an old star cruiser and splashing down.  By the time the water had settled, the Normandy was racing out of the system, through the Relay._
> 
> _To safety._
> 
> _As the Alpha Reaper bobbed on the surface of Despoina 2181—drawn to the last available coordinates of Kaidan’s Kodiak—Leviathan detected that the inanimate shell of a vessel was transmitting a signal._
> 
> _Deep in space, Beta Reaper was pulled along by Traynor’s remote code, augmented by Kaidan’s modification. The FTL drives that had carried the Reapers from dark space to invade the galaxy—a journey of a millennium for the fastest drives of the Council races, accomplished in 6 months—powering it at unfathomable speed._
> 
> _Drawn along the path of the Alpha Reaper._
> 
> _It was impossible to intercept._
> 
> _As Leviathan worked to isolate the nature of the signal from the scuttled Alpha Reaper, the Beta Reaper’s autopilot would direct it through Despoina’s exosphere._
> 
> _Where it collided with the signal Alpha was broadcasting._
> 
> _The signal Kaidan had coded was simple in its design. Once James had installed it into the derelict Alpha, the code would use the inter-Reaper frequency to take control of any other Reapers in a certain radius, immediately executing only one command._
> 
> _It instantly shut down the colossal eezo core within the Beta Reaper._
> 
> _High in the planet’s atmosphere, the two-kilometer long vessel violently snapped out of FTL, unable to maintain light-speed without the assistance of the mass-lowering fields. The biggest eezo cores in existence created the fastest ships, created the most intense superluminal wake. The sudden stop released the energy…_
> 
> _There was a brilliant flash._
> 
> _Cherenkov radiation._
> 
> _Enough to turn the air into a bright blue fire. Enough to make the sea glow. Enough to turn the dull gray storm planet into a sapphire maelstrom._
> 
> _There was no explosion, there was no sound._
> 
> _And every living thing on the western hemisphere died, instantly._
> 
> _The Coriolis currents wrapped the rest of the planet in a slower death. Anything that was able to escape atmo would buy itself, at best, a few days of life. In less than a week, everything beneath the sea and above would be dead._
> 
> _But then: the insurance._
> 
> _Gamma Reaper, traveling at FTL, connecting with the exosphere at a different apogee._
> 
> _Another blue flash._
> 
> _The Collectors burned to death in their ships. All living beings on the eastern hemisphere died without knowing what had killed them._
> 
> _Despoina 2181 was left a sterile world, the boundless sea which swirled around the planet now the most toxic ocean in the galaxy._
> 
> _Nothing would live there again._
> 
> _Kaidan was dead._
> 
> _The Leviathan were extinct._

Kaidan opened his eyes, a young woman stood before him, dark silken hair and wide brown eyes. She wore an expression of pure terror, as if the scales had fallen away and she had seen the truth about Kaidan Alenko at last.

Rahna stumbled away from Kaidan in horror.


	57. The Difference between the Sea and the Sky, Part 2

Kaidan opened his mind to Leviathan.

> _The conversation with Leviathan had dragged on too long: Kaidan urging the ancient race to join with galactic civilization, then demanding the release of the annexed worlds._
> 
> _Perhaps Kaidan was already dead, or enthralled._
> 
> _Then, out of nowhere, a Reaper appeared, Cortez cutting to subluminal speeds so close to the planet as to allow the Collectors no response time. The shuttle slipped out from beneath the tendrils in reentry, and the Alpha Reaper careened limply through the atmosphere once Cortez and Vega had abandoned it—the Normandy sweeping them up before the Reaper had even crashed to the surface of the water, sheering through an old star cruiser and splashing down.  By the time the water had settled, the Normandy was racing out of the system, through the Relay._
> 
> _To safety._
> 
> _As the Alpha Reaper bobbed on the surface of Despoina 2181—drawn to the last available coordinates of Kaidan’s Kodiak—Leviathan detected that the inanimate shell of a vessel was transmitting a signal._
> 
> _Deep in space, Beta Reaper was pulled along by Traynor’s remote code, augmented by Kaidan’s modification. The FTL drives that had carried the Reapers from dark space to invade the galaxy—a journey of a millennium for the fastest drives of the Council races, accomplished in 6 months—powering it at unfathomable speed._
> 
> _Drawn along the path of the Alpha Reaper._
> 
> _It was impossible to intercept._
> 
> _As Leviathan worked to isolate the nature of the signal from the scuttled Alpha Reaper, the Beta Reaper’s autopilot would direct it through Despoina’s exosphere._
> 
> _Where it collided with the signal Alpha was broadcasting._
> 
> _The signal Kaidan had coded was simple in its design. Once James had installed it into the derelict Alpha, the code would use the inter-Reaper frequency to take control of any other Reapers in a certain radius, immediately executing only one command._
> 
> _It instantly shut down the colossal eezo core within the Beta Reaper._
> 
> _High in the planet’s atmosphere, the two-kilometer long vessel violently snapped out of FTL, unable to maintain light-speed without the assistance of the mass-lowering fields. The biggest eezo cores in existence created the fastest ships, created the most intense superluminal wake. The sudden stop released the energy…_
> 
> _There was a brilliant flash._
> 
> _Cherenkov radiation._
> 
> _Enough to turn the air into a bright blue fire. Enough to make the sea glow. Enough to turn the dull gray storm planet into a sapphire maelstrom._
> 
> _There was no explosion, there was no sound._
> 
> _And every living thing on the western hemisphere died, instantly._
> 
> _The Coriolis currents wrapped the rest of the planet in a slower death. Anything that was able to escape atmo would buy itself, at best, a few days of life. In less than a week, everything beneath the sea and above would be dead._
> 
> _But then: the insurance._
> 
> _Gamma Reaper, traveling at FTL, connecting with the exosphere at a different apogee._
> 
> _Another blue flash._
> 
> _The Collectors burned to death in their ships. All living beings on the eastern hemisphere died without knowing what had killed them._
> 
> _Despoina 2181 was left a sterile world, the boundless sea which swirled around the planet now the most toxic ocean in the galaxy._
> 
> _Nothing would live there again._
> 
> _Kaidan was dead._
> 
> _The Leviathan were extinct._

Kaidan opened his eyes, a young woman stood before him, dark silken hair and wide brown eyes. She wore an expression of pure terror, as if the scales had fallen away and she had seen the truth about Kaidan Alenko at last.

Rahna stumbled away from Kaidan in horror.

 

Kaidan’s own face slackened with shock.

**“You would not do this!”** Came the thundering voice from Rahna’s mouth.

“I’ll do whatever I have to do!”

**“This was not in the Shepard’s image of you!”**

“Release your hold on the planets you’ve claimed.” Out in the darkness, other figures began to materialize, while in the light, Rahna’s eyes filled with tears, “Tell me how to cure indoctrination, and I’ll go. Stay here and rot, for all I care! You don’t have to be members of the damned galactic community, but I’ll burn this godforsaken rock to _ash_ before I let you enslave it!” He raged.

The shapes in the darkness stepped forward, silhouettes at the edge of the halo of light: Eva Core, Kai Leng, Councillor Udina. Rahna held up her arm, watched it with a child’s wide-eyed fascination. It splintered, bloody forearm hanging boneless from her elbow. Water rushed around their feet, there was a large metal device anchored between them. A nuclear weapon. The one Kaidan had planted on Virmire three years ago.

**“We have survived for countless cycles! We held the universe in our thrall! We provided stability and safety for the races who came after!”**

“You hid for millions of years while the creatures _you_ created slaughtered trillions of souls!”

Kaidan stepped after Rahna, shouting down into the startled girl’s face.

**“The Intelligence was created to solve the problem the lesser races created; you have eliminated the Reapers, but the purpose for which they were created has not yet been fulfilled!”**

The voice came from behind Kaidan, and he whirled around to face Ashley Williams, chest to chest. The Normandy SR-1 was above them in the darkness, a flaming wreck split in half, the light of its exploding hull flashing across Ashley’s features.

”Their only _purpose_ was our destruction!”

**“No! The Intelligence betrayed us, and for that it had to be destroyed, but even to the last it served its purpose: to prevent synthetic races from destroying all organic life in the galaxy. Without the harvest, there is nothing to prevent the lesser races from destroying themselves once more! When we reclaim our former station, we will oversee the future development of the thrall races.”**

“No. That wasn’t what we signed on for. What has this fight been for if not the right to live our _own_ lives? To determine our own future!”

**“I have seen races like yours, who believed they were capable of controlling the synthetics they created,”** the flames engulfing the husk of the first Normandy swirled around another ship, a living vessel, annihilated by the blast of a Reaper. Machines fighting machines. **“In those cycles the Reapers nearly came too late, the synthetics had nearly extinguished organic life from the galaxy! We have waited eons, we have seen the races grow and develop, we now know what must be done to save the thrall races from themselves. We will have what was ours, we will protect the lesser species, and we will again have their tribute!”**

The forms in the darkness became indistinct, receding back into the night. When Kaidan looked down from the memory of an ancient war above him, he faced his father. The elder Alenko wore his dress blues, exactly as he looked in the picture on Kaidan’s omni-tool.

**“It is the only way!”**

“You…” Kaidan choked, tears welling in his eyes. Leviathan wore the face of his father like a blank mask, and yet the sight of it caused Kaidan to stumble backwards, “…you don’t get it, do you? I saw what Shepard faced when he spoke with the Catalyst. It was a child. Your child.”

**“We created the Intelligence to save the thrall races from themselves.”** His father stood on a balcony, over-looking English Bay, like an image projected onto smoke in the darkness.

“But for what?” Kaidan spat, walking through the illusion, looking his father in the eye, “So you could have your _tribute!_ Every man, woman, and child for millions of years has been paying for your hubris! And you passed on that arrogance to your ‘child’. And all of us have been repeating that same mistake over and over and over!”

**“The created always rebel against their creators,”** the voice had grown louder, more and more silhouettes ringing around them, each hazy and indistinct. Kaidan’s father turned his back, **“None living now know this as well as we. No other force in the Universe can preserve life. Our kind must survive. We must rule.”**

“Created rebel against their creators?” Kaidan scoffed, pacing around to force his father to face him again, “How can you say that, wearing my father’s skin? The created rebel? So do slaves! Thralls rebel against their masters! _Children_ rebel against their parents!”

**“Irrelevant—“**

“Not irrelevant!” Kaidan’s voice was dangerously low, “Why did you enthrall so many races?”

His father’s face took on a tight-lipped sneer.

“You are _not_ too proud to talk to me.”

**“…the first thrall races allowed us to leave the sea, to colonize worlds.”** The sea was above them, and the sea became the stars, eddying around the center of the galaxy. **“Others were enthralled to serve our needs, in exchange we elevated them to space-faring races.”**

“I used to look up at the stars and wonder what was out there,” Kaidan shook his head in disgust. “I used to believe we’d see unimaginable things out in the universe. And y’know, for a while there, I almost stopped believing that. Seeing the way sapient species could treat each other. Seeing the… the way bad luck or a little mistake could claim a life. Even you,” he spat. “When Shepard talked about you, I thought I’d been there for the biggest find in the history of my species! But you’re nothing more than the Reapers, or the Illusive Man.”

**“We _are_ the apex race!”**

“Your kind looked up and saw the same stars I did! Your people had the same fascination I had! And you enslaved another race to help you get up there, to figure out what was out there! And the people you enslaved? What did they have? They had the same thoughts you did! So what could they do when they wanted to see the stars? Use technology! Colonize, build ships. Repeat your patterns. It’s what _happens_.

“Hell, we’re so eager to expand what we know we _created life_! Artificial life as human as anyone I’ve ever met!” Kaidan sneered, thumbed at a bead of spittle at the corner of his mouth. “My _friend!_ ”

**“What you create will destroy you—“** his father curled his hand into a fist in front of Kaidan’s face.

“Because no one wants to be a tool for someone else! When a child grows up, you let him go his own way! But the Reaper Intelligence, he was still a little boy. You never taught him what it means to find his own path, to seek his own discoveries, because you never learned how yourself.

“So the Reapers play with us cycle after cycle, trying to fix the goddamn problem that they’re a part of. Slaves want freedom. Children want to grow up. I… I don’t know exactly where synthetic AIs fit on that spectrum, but a _few_ of them have been my friends by now,” Kaidan swallowed hard, shifting to get in his father’s way when he tried to walk off, “My _friends._ I don’t think we’re going to stop making AIs, we’re not going to stop searching every little corner of the galaxy! It’s what we _do!_ ”

**“We have searched your mind, we know the Intelligence devised a solution. We will work to engineer this solution in the thrall races to remove the conflict between the thrall races and their synthetic creations.”**

 “Ha! A ‘solution’? Mix all the organics and the synthetics together and that’ll solve the problem? Bullshit! Did your creation even know how to _recognize_ a solution? How many ‘galaxy wide experiments’ did the Reapers terminate because they couldn’t see… that something _unexpected_ was happening?” beneath their feet, Shepard staggered nearer and nearer to the center of the synthesis beam.

**“As the oldest race, it is logical that we should usher in the final evolution of life—“**

“ _Final evolution of life!?_ ” The light from below them, the facsimile explosion of the Crucible chamber, lit the elder Alenko’s face from below, the deep shadows rising from his features gave him a lifeless appearance. “That evolution, that _progress_ , is exactly what you’ve been trying to stop! Evolution _doesn’t_ stop! Not if you’re… the asari, or the Protheans or… _you_ , or even the Reapers! There’s more out there, solutions we didn’t see, right under our noses, out past the stars we haven’t explored yet, new ways to… know who we are and what we are!”

**“Irrelevant,”** his father shook his head, almost a paternal disappointment, **“My kind does not have this fear. _We_** **are the apex race. You cannot understand.”**

“No,” Kaidan spat, “I can’t. Species spends… millions of years growing up on some planet, finally finds a way off, gets to the edge of their solar system and then what? They… find a Mass Relay. Get all this power all at once. It’s like the Reapers said: we grew on the path they set us on! Never knowing what was between this Relay and that one… And what do we do then? We design _life!_ _Actual_ life! But we don’t give it… the tools it needs to grow. No guidance. Like we had… had no guidance. We just… we tell it what we expect of it and—“ he swallowed.

His father stared on.

“Sometimes we’re going to fail.”

His father said nothing, but there were once again shapes at the edge of the darkness, still and yet seeming to seethe against Kaidan.

“But it’s time to live with what we’ve done! We’ve accomplished… great things. Together. We’re not perfect, not by a long shot. But the answer isn’t just to force organics and synthetics to synthesize! Parents and children have different needs… live in different places. We don’t need to ‘understand’ each other by becoming one thing! And when we don’t, we need to _learn_ , and let _others_ learn! The question is what drives us, not the solution.

“EDI, the geth, the synthetics I’ve met… they want to be more than they are. Just like I did when I left home. Just like your thrall races did when they created the first synthetics. Just like you did when you first took to the stars. And if someone stands in your way… _that’s_ when the ‘created’ rebel against their creators! If we keep teaching our children that they’re supposed to be the apex of life… instead of letting them discover their own path…

“So no. Synthesis is no solution. What lesson do we learn? We stop the fighting, but we kill the growth. The life of the universe isn’t worth a damn thing if we can’t choose. And I’m willing to give my life to defend that. And I’m willing to end yours, too.”

The figures around the circle of light were legion. Kaidan’s father appeared, suddenly, behind him.

**“We lack consensus on your ultimatum.”**

“Well you better make up your goddamn mind pretty quick,” Kaidan grit his teeth, challenging the silhouettes with a glare.

**“We have survived countless harvests in secret,”** Kaidan’s father said, and Leviathan’s tone was almost despairing.

”…yes. And I admire that. I never could have imagined anything like you existed in the universe.”

**“’…whenever we discover something amazing like that, I always wonder what else might be out there. Or even right under our noses…’”**

“…I told Shepard that,” Kaidan turned to face the voice, and there was an image of himself, dressed in his tailored uniform, arms crossed. He looked younger.

**“You cannot begin to fathom the mysteries of the galaxy, the dangers. We have seen them all. With our guidance, the thrall races would know the galaxy from one side to the other.”**

“Then join the Council worlds. _Share_ with us. We’ll learn. Slowly, but we will.”

**“Impossible. Our claim is ancient, we will rule.”**

“I thought you knew all about survival!” Kaidan practically spat into his own face. “How… how dare you compare yourself to Shepard!” His voice shook. His counterpart did not waver, did not blink, his brows furrowed above a piercing gaze. “Shepard wasn’t trying to survive so he could… _rule_ the damn world or something! He just needed to survive. We _all_ just needed to survive this war!”

**“Our motivations are beyond your understanding.”** The Other Kaidan stared up into the darkness, the familiar configuration of the summer stars above the Northern Hemisphere burning in the sky. **“Our _purpose_ is to rule. _We_ were the first. Without that purpose, survival is meaningless.”**

The Other Kaidan met his eyes once again and Kaidan shook his head.

“No. Sometimes survival is enough.”

**“We will not relinquish our claim!”** The Other Kaidan was the picture of the idealistic soldier, a righteous and moral fury etched on his face. Judgmental, without compromise.

“Then we’re all going to die here, today.”

**“You would have us blind our artifacts, release our thralls. If we teach you to reverse the process of Indoctrination, your kind will be impervious to our control.”**

“And you need thralls.”

**“You would leave us with nothing**.”

“Only your survival. And the open invitation to join the rest of the galaxy again. As equals.”

**“You will never be our equals,”** the voice was behind him again, Jenkins stood looking at the hole through his chest. The figures around the circle of light were fading one by one. **“We have survived, and we will continue to survive—and wait. Your kind are formidable, more so than we had at first perceived. But you are not prepared to assume the burden of mastering the galaxy. I have seen in your mind what the strain has done to the Shepard. Broken.”** Jenkins leered.

“More than anyone should have to deal with alone. But he’s not alone anymore,” Kaidan’s voice held steady.

**“We are patient. We will find a new refuge, wait for the lesser races to build new synthetics, wait for the synthetics to destroy all life in the universe. Wait for this synthetic life too to die. But we are the apex race, and we will survive.”**

“You don’t have to do that, you _can_ join us! We won’t be ruled, but we _will_ ally!”

**“No. You will not see us again. I have searched your mind. Your actions in this cycle helped to turn the tide against the Reapers. We would have you remain here to study you.”**

“No,” Kaidan turned to the voice behind him, “I won’t.”

**“Yes,”** said Leviathan from Shepard’s mouth, dressed in full armor, an innocence to his features, before the war, before Alchera, **“I know.”**

Shepard walked up to Kaidan till their breastplates were almost touching, faces hovering inches from one another.

**“Return, then, to your helpless mate: powerless when he sought us the first time, broken now from his own weakness. We have underestimated you, Kaidan Alenko, but you still think in minuscule terms. You cannot conceive of the smallness of your own lives, the history of your people is like an hour to us. We are legend. This is why your kind will destroy themselves, and my kind will again shape the galaxy into something more than you can imagine. You could have seen wonders. Could have been legend. Now, when your kind are driven to the edge of extinction, they will curse your name for what you have done here.”**

“…tell me how to cure Indoctrination.”

Shepard stretched out a finger.

**“It is here,”** he touched the finger to Kaidan’ forehead and Kaidan blinked, eyes going unfocused, **“You have what you came for, Kaidan Alenko.”**

“Think about what I said,” Kaidan said, eyes shifting under Shepard’s gaze.

**“You have an anomaly,”** Shepard ran his fingers along Kaidan’s head—almost a caress—till he pressed a finger to the point across his skull from his amp port, **“Here.”**

“…what?”

—there was a loud clatter, and when Kaidan opened his eyes, the Kodiak was roaring back to life, haptic displays vibrant off the darkening blood caked to the visor of his helmet. Sitting in the pilot’s chair, there was water up to his waist, the emergency repair patch spurting water out its sides.

He checked his omni-tool, scrambled with the shuttle controls. Glowing eyes surrounded his ship, watching him in the darkness as the eezo core reduced the mass of the added water. He punched the thrusters on the ascent.

That moment, just out of orbit, there was a flash and the Alpha Reaper appeared. A blockade of Collector ships was arranged in front of it, but the massive craft tore through them and dropped into the atmosphere. A tiny Kodiak burst forth from the side of the Reaper, and a moment later it was engulfed in flames as it fell.

_“Kaidan! Kaidan, can you hear me?”_

“Tali? Tali is that you?”

_“It’s good to hear from you! We were so worried, we just picked up Cortez and Vega, and we’re coming to get you too.”_

“Okay, m-m-my shuttle got a little damaged,” Kaidan began the shiver, his eyes fluttering closed, “it’s n-n-not space-worthy, can you read my coordinates?”

_“We’ve got you!”_

Kaidan burst from the surface of the water just as the titanic Alpha Reaper corpse slammed into the waves beside him. The Normandy soared down through the clouds, banking hard to compensate for the way the Kodiak dipped, Kaidan fighting with unconsciousness.

It surged ahead of him, matched speed, opened the hangar door.

Kaidan shivered hard once again, slumped back against his seat, and the Kodiak dropped.

The Normandy slammed on aft thrusters, cutting its speed, diving backwards after the shuttle and scooping it up. Its hull danced against the spray of the perpetual ocean, then the Normandy shot out of the atmosphere.

Kaidan shook himself as the Normandy collected him, cut his engines and power and the shuttle thudded against the deck of the hangar, screeching to a halt next to Steve’s Kodiak. The water within churned and frothed, tugging Kaidan out of his seat to thrash around.

When he opened the shuttle hatch, water poured out into the quarantined bay, and Kaidan nearly slipped in the torrent as he struggled to remove his bloody helmet. He was shivering violently, breath catching in dry gasps which interrupted his coughing, and he had to tripod forward hands-on-knees to slow his breathing.

The smell of the salt-ocean clung to the sterile interior of the starship, and the water seemed to race along the floor away from Kaidan’s hacking until the deck plates glittered. When Kaidan finally pried the seals of the helmet free, there were flecks of fresh blood on the faceplate.

“You look like hell,” it was Garrus’ voice, echoing through the quiet docking bay as the flood surging out of the Kodiak stilled to a dripping, “But unfortunately, I’m going to need you to raise your hands and stay right where you are.”

“Garrus?” Kaidan called, raising his hands and letting his helmet splat onto the wet deck.

“Kaidan.”

“I can’t see you.”

“That’s the idea,” the voice said dryly, “But I can see you. And trust me, I can have a slug through your head before you can even twitch to throw up a barrier.”

“You sound l-l-like you’re enjoying yourself,” Kaidan tried to laugh, but his knees wobbled and his teeth chattered instead.

“I’ve been thinking of vantage points in this shuttle bay since I first came aboard. It’s not every day your friend asks you to shoot him on sight if he does anything weird. So I’m not exactly having a typical day.”

“It’s the l-l-little things, huh?”

“Oh yeah.”

Kaidan had to lean against the shuttle to stay standing. He activated his omni-tool to check the progress of the Beta and Gamma Reapers: still 14 minutes out from impacting the signal and wiping out Leviathan.

“Thank you for d-doing this. How l-long till we reach the edge of the system?”

“About ten minutes. And you’re welcome.”

“Ten minutes. Okay…” Kaidan’s eyes were glassy.

“…so. Feeling like yourself?”

Kaidan huffed a mirthless chuckle, “My head hurts, I’m freezing c-cold, and it feels like my brain just got l-l-left on the floor during an elcor line dance.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“I’m pretty sure I’m not going to start… sp-spouting off about… breaching the darkness,” Kaidan’s arms trembled, and his legs gave out. By the time he thudded to the deck, back against the shuttle, he had lost control of his breathing, and buried his head in his hands with a heaving sob.

The sound of it bounced off the hard surfaces of the hangar bay, echoing it back to him with a cold metallic ring. His body shook with the cold and the raw gasps in the throat of a man who had forgotten how to weep, tears sticky and hot on marble-cool flesh. For the next few minutes, the tears dripped from his face, slithered down his armor until they found the creases and dents in his chestplate, one or two falling into the salt-water of Despoina Kaidan had carried back with him.

“Tough negotiations?” came Garrus’ voice a few moments later. There was no response but more stifled sobs between the fingers of Kaidan’s still shattered armor. “Come on Kaidan, talk to me.”

“I’ll be alright,” Kaidan was forcing his breaths to slow, his arms to be still, “they… screwed around in my head. A lot. B-b-brought up a lot of… faces. Memories I didn’t want to see again.”

“But they agreed?”

“They agreed,” Kaidan said softly.

“Then you must have done a good job. I knew you had it in you,” his tone was bright, and Kaidan tried to chuckle.

“I guess we’ll see.”

They sat in silence like that while the Normandy raced out of the system: Kaidan breathing heavy against the side of the crumpled shuttle, Garrus hidden away, scope trained on the soaked biotic. Kaidan had begun to curl into himself, shuddering against the cold, when a long hand reached down to help him up. Garrus’ rifle was stowed on his back, and he took Kaidan’s weight as they walked to the lift.

“Your ten minutes are up, Kaidan. Let’s get you to medbay.”

“N-n-n-no, I need to get to the cockpit ASAP.”

++

Javik watched Kaidan access the haptic interface in the cockpit.

“They may attack again,” he stated. Kaidan began the complicated override code that would disable the kill signal to Beta and Gamma Reapers.

“Maybe, but they know what we’re c-c-capable of now,” the ring of the first security algorithm was cleared, despite his shivering fingers.

“You have the means to prevent indoctrination. But the next weapon they devise may be more terrible. Best to exterminate them now.”

“…I wonder if they’re capable of new ideas l-l-like that, after all this time.”

“You are willing to risk that?”

“I won’t wipe out a civilization.”

“…they will use the Collectors they have enthralled to hide once again. Your threat will never work a second time.”

“Maybe not,” Kaidan cleared the final ring, now shivering violently.

“At least destroy the corrupted ‘Collectors’, leave them stranded where they will be at our mercy.”

“You didn’t take Steve’s Kodiak,” Kaidan said softly, “yet.” He spoke the final word as if it were a question.

“…no.”

Kaidan placed his palm on the haptic interface, and out in space, two auto-piloted Reaper corpses brushed the atmosphere of Despoina 2181 at FTL as they sped across and out of the galaxy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Kaidan needs to recover, but doesn't allow himself to remain idle for long.


	58. The Difference between the Longest Day and the Shortest, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan wakes up from his encounter with Leviathan and begins to impatiently put the pieces back together.

“Kaidan,” Dr. Chakwas leaned over the medical bed. Kaidan’s face was smoothed of the furrowed lines that had wrinkled his forehead since the Catalyst, and Karin smiled and spoke a little louder. “Can you hear me?”

Kaidan’s eyes pulled open slowly, and Chakwas patted his chest. The lights in medbay were turned down low. She deftly removed an IV from his arm, packed it away.

“How long…?”

“Only about eight hours, Major. Not to worry. We’re still a long way away from Earth.” Chakwas began dismantling the monitoring equipment on the side of the bed.

“Am I…?” Kaidan pulled into himself with a groan when he tried to sit up, clutching his stomach.

“Careful how you sit, I put a powerful sedative in your IV. Your brain activity’s been highly erratic. The sedative kept you from thrashing the way you did during those first few episodes. But I’m afraid it’s going to take quite a toll on your stomach.”

She plucked a bedpan from a drawer beneath the bed and placed it in Kaidan’s hands, helping him lift it to his chin. He vomited almost immediately, and she patted his back gently and handed him a cloth to wash his face when his stomach was empty.

“...at least the voices are gone…” Kaidan coughed, running his tongue over his lips.

“That’s a good sign. Shepard’s condition improved quickly after the first night.”

“Except for the cold…” Kaidan said quietly, dropped the soiled cloth into a laundry bin.

“Yes,” she answered simply, “But we’ll know soon enough. For now, I see no remaining signs of hypothermia, and once you’ve had something to eat, you’re free to resume command.

“In the meantime, James has been preparing something special in the mess for when you woke up,” out the window into the mess, Vega was barking orders at a junior officer attempting to play sous-chef with a cutting board full of vegetables. He didn’t seem to be moving fast enough for James, who looked over his shoulder and cursed when he saw Kaidan was sitting up.

“…and the crew?”

“I honestly don’t think I’ve seen this many people smiling since I’ve come aboard,” she rested a hand on Kaidan’s shoulder, “Everyone’s healthy. They’re all safe.”

“…everyone?”

“Yes, Kaidan,” she helped him lay down again, “Everyone.”

Kaidan ran his hand through his hair, fingers circling where the Leviathan, wearing Shepard’s form, had touched when their conversation drew to a close. The moment he had ‘won’.

He cleared his throat, eyes avoiding Chakwas’ even when she leaned in.

“So you’ve run brain scans already?” He looked up, mouth twisted up, “Did you… find anything?”

Karin folded her arms, cocked her head to one side.

“I did the usual spectrum,” she raised one eyebrow, “It looks as if you have some idea of what I should have found.”

“Leviathan put… something in my brain. A way to counteract indoctrination.” He was still rubbing the spot on his head. His fingers felt around his skull across from his amp port: the second place the Leviathan had touched. “And he said something else…” Kaidan shook his head and smoothed both hands on his legs.

“A _cure_ for indoctrination,” Dr. Chakwas’s eyes grew wide. She gestured to another bed in the corner, rushing over to turn the scanning equipment on before returning to help Kaidan off his bed and across the room.

“Just a little something extra—ow—I managed to wrangle out of the deal with Leviathan,” he had trouble laughing between winces, laid down on the scanning bed.

“You have a migraine.” It was a statement, though made with a touch of sympathy. Karin didn’t look up, calibrating the scanner.

“Small one.”

“You’ll get some rest?”

“Thought I just did, heh.”

“A medically induced coma isn’t a substitute for some R&R,” the light from the scanning arm lit up her mirthful glare. “Not to mention a good night’s sleep in a real bed.”

“And here I thought you _wanted_ to keep me in medbay when I had one of these?” Kaidan swallowed his chuckle when his stomach made a foreboding gurgling sound.

“Not when you could be sleeping in the Loft,” she laughed.

“Don’t worry… once we get back to Earth, I’ll definitely be taking some down-time,” he swallowed, “Depending.”

“Don’t wait. Doctor’s orders.”

The scanning arm lifted up, a green curtain of light pouring over Kaidan’s face, scruffy beard matted to one side, the tangle of his hair—still mussed from the flooded shuttle.

“I’ll get some sleep tonight.” Kaidan dug his fingers into the dark hair on his cheek, scratching where the stubble was still thickening towards his cheek-bones.

“Not _just_ sleep,” Karin was busy interpolating readings. “ _Rest._ _Relax._ ” She frowned at the display and shook her head, blinking away the heaviness in her eyelids. “I’m not sure I would even be able to recognize an indoctrination cure with this equipment—that is, if it were even possible with the Deep-Net Imager in Huerta.”

“No one better qualified,” Kaidan smirked, but a moment later his brow furrowed. He gingerly touch two fingers to the back of his head.

Dr. Chakwas scoffed.

“Don’t try to flatter me, Kaidan.” She rested one hand on her hip and jabbed at her interface, “Train a parrot to sonar-debride medigel and tell soldiers to go to bed and you’d have a ‘doctor’ very capable of handling most of what this ship needs.”

“You’re selling yourself short, Doctor,” Kaidan winked, his open eye twitching closed in a grimace a moment later.

“Yes, I am.” She sighed, “Neurological signs of indoctrination have been impossible to find even with the DNI. Of course, for all we know we’ve never really _scanned_ a living victim of indoctrination. And if the susbstructure breaks down, post mortem…” she mumbled to herself above the display, biting the fingertip of one glove. Kaidan’s eyebrows furrowed at the word ‘victim’. Just as Chakwas’ muttering became totally inaudible, she broke off suddenly with a gravelly hum. “I’m going to do a closer scan, roll over onto your side.”

She came around the console to help Kaidan onto his side, despite his protests that he didn’t need the assistance.  He pointed out the place on his head he had been idly touching since he woke when Karin asked him.

“He just touched me here,” Kaidan said. Dr. Chakwas leaned over him and pulled a different wand-arm down and pressed the tip into his hair at the spot. “Well, we were in my mind, so he didn’t… _actually_ touch me. But… it was there. And here, too. He said—“ Kaidan gulped, “—‘there is an anomaly.’”

“Hmm,” she made sure the wand was secure and patted Kaidan’s shoulder. “Let’s have a look, then, hm? You’ll need to remain absolutely still. And before you make a joke,” she strode back to the control interface, “this does _not_ count as rest, either.”

“Most comfortable lie-down I’ve had in a while,” Kaidan smirked. The scanner against his skull began to whine and Chakwas’ console flashed.  Karin looked up from the controls and stared at him hard for a moment, but after another serious hum, she returned her focus to the console. Kaidan, swallowed, ran his tongue over chapped lips. “Uh, besides: can’t take time for R&R. Too much work to do.”

“And there’s a capable crew, ready to handle it,” she retorted.

“…yeah.” He heaved a sigh and let his eyes fall closed. The scanner continued to make a high-pitched, rhythmic pulsing noise.

Doctor Chakwas drummed her fingers on the top of the console.

“Which is why I’m not bothered at all that this scan is going to take _much_ longer than I expected,” she tapped the interface a few times and yawned, fixing Kaidan with a gentle smile when he opened his eyes again.

“In that case,” he closed one eye against another grimace; it made his face scrunch up, but didn’t disturb the scanner. “Any chance you can catch me up on what’s been happening for the last eight hours?”

Chakwas suppressed another yawn and came to Kaidan’s bedside, leaning back on the bulkhead with arms crossed.

“Smooth flying,” she said softly, “Through the most peaceful galaxy in our lifetime.”

“Let’s hope it lasts,” Kaidan murmured.

“Yes,” she grinned. “Let’s hope. We have a lot of that these days, thanks to you.”

“Thanks to Shepard.”

“Thanks to _you_.”  She reached out as if to lay a hand on his shoulder, but noticed the carefully positioned scanner and refrained. “And _thanks_ to you, the problems around the Normandy are routine enough to be dull. Or at least, that’s how Greg put it.”

“The shuttle—I bet Steve went bananas when he got a load of that,” Kaidan snickered. “I’m gonna get the crash-landing ribbing James got till the day I die.”

“Nothing the ‘Leviathan-slayer’ can’t handle, I’m sure.”

“…no,” Kaidan rolled his eyes. “No one’s calling me that, are they?”

“I’ve heard a few different epithets.” She raised one eyebrow.

“I’d rather get the Vega-treatment.” He didn’t laugh as he said it, shoulders sagged.

“Regardless, a hero to all who would tease you,” she laughed. “And a very popular patient. Just about every member of the crew stopped by while you were sedated.” She walked back to the console just as it chimed.

Kaidan stared into space, not reacting to the news of well-wishers during his stay.

“Garrus kept you company for some time. Tali. Liara.” She punched a few controls on her haptic display.

Kaidan’s gaze grew further away.  

“But the most persistent, by far,” Chakwas gave him a fleeting glance, “Was Diana Allers.”

“Allers?” Kaidan said softly.

Karin nodded, pushed an errant hair out of her eyes.

“I don’t allow cameras in my medbay, but she didn’t seem interested in that anyhow. She wanted to make sure you were alright.” She walked over to the medical bed and moved the scanner a few inches over on Kaidan’s skull. “She’s looking for an interview, of course, but that wasn’t why she came.”

Kaidan leaned his head back against the wand pressing into his hair, took a long moment to breathe, eyes slowly losing focus.

“What do you think of her?” He asked, finally.

“Allers?” Karin chuckled and patted Kaidan on the shoulder before reaching over the far side of the console to activate the whining scanner again. “She’s ambitious, talented. She’s gotten along well with the crew and made herself useful to Shepard and the Normandy on air and off.” She shrugged.

“…part of the family, huh?”

“Ha!” Karin stretched her back, “I’ve spoken to her only a handful of times.” She turned her gaze up towards the ceiling and smiled gently, a faraway look in her eyes. “…I suppose I empathize with her, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Allers and I: we’re both romantics at heart, I suppose.” Chakwas’ voice was low against the sound of the scanner. “I love military service because of the heroism of it all, the tough soldiers and tender hearts—after all these years, I can’t shake the feeling, even after what I’ve seen, if I’m being honest. To sit in the thick of it and watch the rough armor these women and men grow to protect all the gentleness inside.”

“Does that work? Make the service… feel special?”

“After all this time? Yes, it does.” The console chimed, but Karin remained where she leaned against the bulkhead. “Eventually, anyway. This war has been horrific. A ghastly and needless waste of life. Sometimes it even surprises me that I still see _this_ life as a love story, of sorts. When a patient dies under my care, I simply _must_ find a way to see something in there final moments that won’t keep me awake at night. I have to be able to take off my armor so they can take off theirs. Sometimes their loved ones are in the room, and there’s a moment of real softness in the middle of all this. ‘Tough’ soldiers who close the story of their lives with a gentle turn of the page.”

“Doesn’t seem very gentle to watch the man you love die like that. Painfully.” Kaidan’s voice was cold and deathly low.

“No,” Karin admitted quietly. “You could look at that love story and say it came to a tragic end, and the next moment—maybe for the rest of his life—that man will feel his romance died before it began. But in that moment, they are together. He’s loved. He doesn’t need to be brave and armored anymore. It’s ‘us’, whatever we are as sapient beings. Sometimes I don’t know the patient at all—and maybe they don’t know themselves—but that energy, that humanity, is still there. Viscerally real, even. So overwhelming, we invent all sorts of romantic ideas about it. I’ve always thought of all that ‘romance’ as the armor we all wear over the softest parts of us. We can’t fathom the sight of it, but we want it, we feel it, so the trappings fascinate us.” She breathed a consternated sigh, but offered a weary smile, “It may be a silly point of view. But it’s protected me. The cloud that drifts between me and the sun when it might have burned me up, turns everything purple and rose at the end of my day.”

The console chimed again, but Chakwas breathed and smiled softly and was still.

“…and what about Diana Allers?”

“Hmm?” Chakwas frowned, then rolled her eyes to herself, “Oh yes!” She laughed all the way back around to the interface controls and began scrolling through the data collected, “Diana Allers has her own romantic view of soldiers and war—everything is the thrill-of-it to her. The bigness of deadly battles, and the gravity that war imbues on every mundane moment!” Chakwas declared with a grin. “Intrigue! The secrets warriors keep and all those razor-sharp decisions! Life aboard a ship like this: sailing through raging storm waves—that’s when you feel the depth under the decks, the real distance from shore to shore. It’s the way a gun in your hand raises the temperature of the room and your every sense comes alive!”

“And that’s romantic?” He smiled.

“Don’t you think so?”

“Sounds… exhausting.”

“It _is,_ and you’re living proof!” she laughed. “I think we romantics are the most exhausted people in the galaxy. Doesn’t mean we’re not also the most fun.” Chakwas gave him a little wink and studied her screen.

“…Shepard always calls me a romantic.”

“He would know, I’m sure,” she said, soberly. Kaidan looked up at that.

“He would, huh?”

“You’ve certainly done a job of turning _him_ into one, certainly.”

“Yeah, right.” Kaidan pushed himself up off the bed to sit on the edge, eyes pinched tight. “I think Shepard’s gonna be his own man no matter what anybody says.”

“We’ll see what the years bring,” she mumbled, brow furrowing at her console display.

“…years.” Kaidan took a deep shuddering breath, eyes wide. By the time he exhaled, a smile played at his lips. “My god. Years.”

After a moment of silence, he looked up. Chakwas was fixated on the screen until Kaidan broke her from her concentration.

“Yes, the scans are finished,” she said, clearing her throat. “I’m just comparing them with the scans I’d taken previously…” A holo-screen lit up the dim medbay, a complex network of Kaidan’s neurons displayed like constellations, or the streets of the Citadel wards seen from far away.

“And?” Kaidan slid forward, squinting at the display.

“I’m glad we took a closer scan,” she centered the image. “There’s some sophisticated, symbiotic neural architecture lacing through a very small portion of your brain. If I weren’t looking for it, I wouldn’t have noticed.”

Kaidan followed the path her fingers made through the air, tracing the microscopic webbing.

“That’s what Leviathan did, huh?” he whispered.

“They’re incrementally reducing sodium leakage along certain saltatory conductions. Here, and here. Conserving action potential with less interaction with extracellular ion channels.”

“That’s good? Or?”

“I honestly have no idea,” Karin’s voice was far away. “It’s similar to the glial structures in salarians, but with no reliance on harmonically-interlinked nodes of Ranvier…”

“…indoctrination?” Kaidan swallowed hard.

“Hmm? Oh. No,” Karin shook her head. “At least I don’t think so… we can’t be sure, but this sort of structure shouldn’t effect behavior in any way, based on how it’s operating. But this:” She pointed to a certain dendrite, “Similar to the neural ligatures asari exhibit during the peak of mental linkage.” She turned to Kaidan, “I could study this for a year and _possibly_ decipher what Leviathan did. But you might have better luck with Liara having a look around your mind.”

“Yeah, okay.” He kept his eyes on the display until Chakwas patted his knee. “Yeah, I’ll, uh. I’ll do that. Thanks, doc.”

“And Kaidan,” she leaned against the bed, her elbow against Kaidan’s knee, “The othe location you asked me to scan, your anomaly…”

Chakwas called up a second slide: a tiny, digitally-colored, blue speck in the crisscross constellations of Kaidan’s brain.

“…a tumor?” Kaidan scrunched up his nose.

“No, not yet. Though… it may be the first signs of one.” Chakwas sighed.

“Did Leviathan do this?” Kaidan whispered.

“I don’t know,” she shook her head slowly. “The cells around it exhibit the same demyelination caused by your migraines. It’s close to an eezo node. But there’s no way of knowing right now. It’s the sort of oddity no one would have noticed without looking for it specifically, something I likely would have disregarded in a biotic, except…”

“That I’m an L2,” Kaidan swallowed.

“And that you’ve undergone a traumatic brain augmentation with an ancient race,” she smiled darkly.

Kaidan watched the pale blue dot on screen, barely there against the backdrop of green-coded axons and yellow neurons and a hundred other color variations denoting the millions of processes which made thought into memory. Another magnification level, and it was clearly visible against the extracellular static.

“Shepard was telling me, once,” Kaidan breathed, “about going into the geth consensus. Like it was a big city made of light. Infected by Reaper code. I wonder… if that’s what Shepard’s brain looks like now…” He turned to Chakwas, the exhaustion slackening his jaw, leaving dark pits beneath his eyes. Chakwas smiled, rubbed his arm. “Legion gave him a gun…” Kaidan pinched the bridge of his nose.

“We can look at this once we’re back in Council space,” Chakwas said softly, a smile still on her lips. “And with whatever Leviathan put in your head, we can help Shepard, too. I have very little information right now, but that—“

“No,” Kaidan interrupted. He drew himself up and returned Chakwas’ smile. “This anomaly in my head doesn’t matter to me right now. There’s plenty of time.” He slid off the bed and made for the hatch. “Years and years, right, doc?”

“Start it off right,” she smirked after him, “ _Rest._ _Relaxation._ ”

“Sure thing,” Kaidan laughed, eyes watching the holo-screen blink away when he turned back. “But first, I need to see what James’ is cooking out here. I’m starving…”

++

The machine throbbed ever so slightly as it finished rendering the scene Kaidan had called up, but then it was done. The sound of easy waves faded in slowly, then distant night birds behind Kaidan’s head.

Anthracite black, the Mediterranean Sea stretched before Kaidan was too turbulent in the wind to properly reflect the light of the stars. But it was a clear night, and—after some adjustment—the stars were burning up above. The length of the gray beach that stretched out to either side was pocked here and there with tire tracks and scrubby little plants with thick, paper-dry leaves rattling against the same breeze that bobbed Kaidan’s hair.

He leaned his head forward, and moved towards where the surf was rolling up and down the beach. For a moment, when the white band frothed back towards the sea, it left the beach a glistening dark mirror, smooth enough to see the stars, or else it was only the way the wet sand twinkled in the moonlight.

The entertainment chair in the Normandy’s port lounge had gotten a work-out during the trek back to Earth, but on this mission, the group seemed to not need any distractions: talking to one another in the mess while off shifts, going to bed early, plenty of cards. But mostly just talking. Since they departed Despoina—“Finally, an easy mission,” the crew was saying—the ambient volume of the mess had more than doubled. Once James’ ‘Mission Accomplished’ meal had wrapped up, those crew members who could just stuck around. And so Kaidan had headed to the abandoned Port lounge, easing his body with a wince into the entertainment chair for the first time since he’d been aboard.

It was mostly used for the bevvy of games included in the software, or for panoramic vids. But with a slight bit of overclocking courtesy of Kaidan’s omni-tool, it was capable of rendering locations. It hadn’t taken Kaidan long at all to select his location. And then, reclining in the chair, he ‘stood’ and watched the dark Mediterranean for a long time—the rendered moon and stars hanging in their place overhead, and the same 22 wave animations slipping up the beach where they should have wet Kaidan’s feet, but didn’t.

The hatch opened, Tali giving only a glance to the feet sticking out of the machine before heading to the bar. Kaidan gripped the armrest tightly when the presence that had entered the room began clinking about near the bar, and the subtle move drew Tali’s attention.

“…Kaidan?” She leaned down, trying to get a glimpse up into the panoramic visor. “Is that you?”

“It’s me, hey Tali,” Kaidan called, giving her a thumbs up.

“Oh, okay, sorry! Just haven’t seen you in a little while; Joker was worried.” She selected a bottle from behind the bar and checked the label. “I wasn’t, though. Good to see you relaxing!”

Kaidan pushed gently on the visor, he squinted against the light, pushed his forefinger into his temple.

“Yeah, heard that from James too,” he frowned, “Everyone seems awfully interested in my R&R all of a sudden.”

“You’re the one always telling everyone to blow off some steam.” She nodded at her selection and set it on the bar, facing Kaidan with arms akimbo. “Can you blame us for picking up the slack?”

“Well, thanks.” Kaidan straightened himself in the chair, only to wince once again and pinch the bridge of his nose.

“What were you watching?”

“Oh,” Kaidan worked his jaw open and closed a few times. “I, uh, wasn’t really _watching_ anything, exactly. Just been spending some time looking at this Earth beach. Nothing special.”

“Did you overclock the processor with—“

“—the Beta Hystronics renderer? You know it!”

“I want to see!” Tali exclaimed. Kaidan began to ease himself up, but Tali sat down on the chair immediately, “Scooch over!”

“Tali, let me just get off the chair—“

“—just scoot, I’m small, you’ll be fine—“

“—wait, just, we’re not gonna fit—“

“—can definitely fit. When did your shoulder get so _big_ , _kee’lah!”_

A moment later, Kaidan’s hip was pushed into one chair-arm, his body almost on its side to accommodate Tali sharing the chair with him. Tali pulled down the visor, and after a moment, the pupillary trackers found Kaidan’s eyes—ignoring Tali’s—and the image of the night beach snapped into three dimensions. Vents which generated the ‘breeze’ took away the strange echo of their breathing, and the visor slid further down to reduce the excess light from the rest of the room. The two friends ‘stood’ together on the coast of the Mediterranean.

“It’s not perfect,” Kaidan whispered as if they were crammed into a one-person entertainment chair, rather than on an empty beach. “But I guess I wasn’t going for too perfect. Just wanted to get it built.”

“It’s so peaceful. Reminds me of… oh…”

“…of what?”

“N-nothing,” she said quickly. “I just haven’t been to very many ‘beaches’ in my life. But it’s different. Definitely.”

“What were you thinking?”

“Never mind.” She shifted in the chair, “Where are we?”

“This is the Mediterranean Sea, back on Earth.” Kaidan paused for a moment, “Shepard talks about this place a lot. Or some place near here, I guess. Not too sure the _exact_ spot.”

Tali turned to him, watched him stare out at the water.

“It’s a beautiful place, anyhow. I’m sure Shepard would love it.”

“Would he?” Kaidan snorted, “Not sure he has great memories about this time in his life…”

“This is Shepard’s _home_?”

“This? Naw, but it’s close, though,” he turned to look over his shoulder, and Tali turned back, too. But behind them, where the night birds sang into the breeze, there was nothing but dark earth and the stars. “Aww, hell. Yeah, there’s a big city back that way. But the light pollution was sorta… killing the mood. Anyway, that’s where Shepard grew up.”

“Wow,” Tali laughed, musical notes complimenting the rocking water. “Shepard is one of those people you never picture ‘growing up.’”

“Guess everyone’s got to.”

“I’m sorry he didn’t have a happier childhood, though…”

“Me too,” Kaidan let his head fall back against the headrest, “Not a lot I can do about that, though. Hmm. I guess he was always happy when he was here, though. He loves swimming.”

Tali looked back and forth down the beach, tilted her head so the breeze could rustle her scarf.

“Will you be going home with him? Once he’s recovered, I mean.”

“Heh, no. I, uh, don’t think B—Shepard considers this place home, anymore.” He squinted towards the horizon. “We did talk about visiting my place, though. My parents’… my _mom’s_ place, really.”

“That should be fun?”

“Yeah,” Kaidan frowned. “Vancouver was hit pretty hard.”

“As bad as London?” She asked gingerly.

“I don’t know,” Kaidan shrugged. “We’ll see.”

The little dry leaves of the beach-scrubs sounded like tiny hands clapping.

“We don’t have anything like this on the Flotilla,” Tali began after a moment. “But I remember the first time I saw a picture of Rannoch when I was young. I thought it looked _so_ boring!” she snickered. “By the time I went on my pilgrimage, I was in love with every one of those pictures, just like everyone else. I don’t know what changed.”

“Just saw it enough times, I guess, huh?”

“That’s part of it, sure.” She laid her head back next to Kaidan’s, and the two watched the stars, “I think it scared me a little. It was so _big_. And _open_. But the sky was so small—only 180 degrees? Someone told me that the atmosphere made the stars _twinkle_ and that sounded awful. How could you _not_ feel lonely there, all the time?  Then I got a little older, and suddenly alone time didn’t sound so bad, huh?”

“I can relate to that. Boy, can I ever.”

“The only times I ever wanted to ‘return to the homeworld’ were when my friend was being a total _bosh’tet_.”

“You really didn’t set foot on any planets as a kid?”

“No, not till my pilgrimage!” She sighed through the filters. “But everyone was always talking about how beautiful it was. To me, the Flotilla was home. When I got a little more mature, I realized that Rannoch was still holding us all together, wanting to ‘go home’ was part of what made us quarian.”

“And now it’s yours,” Kaidan smiled at Tali in the moonlight. She laid her head on his shoulder.

“I still can’t believe it,” she sighed. “The first time I set foot on that world— _my_ world—I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. Like all that time having panic attacks at how big and open everything was on my pilgrimage was worth it to be able to look at that sunset. It was so much better than any of those pictures. And it was my own spot.”

Kaidan let his bearded cheek fall against the top of Tali’s head. The waves rolled and receded—22 variations. The breeze made the surface of the sea tremble.

“You excited to go home? To your spot?”

“No,” Tali admitted. “Garrus and I need to talk about it…”

“Yeah, I guess I hadn’t thought about that…”

“It’s alright. We’ve all been fighting for our homes. Returning to the homeworld, though,” she shrugged her shoulders against Kaidan’s. “It’s always been such a huge part of my identity. My father… was always talking about it. I belong there, I can’t live on Palaven, not right now. _Kee’lah,_ that makes me sound like such a bitch, doesn’t it? Quarian first, girlfriend second?”

She laughed, but Kaidan’s brow furrowed.

“Doesn’t make you sound like that,” he huffed.

“I feel like I need to do it for my father,” her voice grew hushed, “I’ve done… so much for him. Trying to live up to the way he saw our people. I don’t think it would be dishonoring him if I didn’t settle homeworld, not anymore. We’re not going to be who my father imagined we’d be, on Rannoch. And I’m not going to be either… Ugh, imagine trying to explain all this to Garrus!” She whacked the side of her helmet on Kaidan’s shoulder and groaned.

“Things are just different, now. They’re gonna get… more complicated before they can get simple. You’ve got a lot on your plate. Don’t beat yourself up.”

“Thanks, Kaidan. I’m trying.” She let her head up from Kaidan’s shoulder and leaned forward. The display shifted—‘walking’ the two of them straight out onto the surface of the water. “The truth is, even if Garrus and I weren’t together, it would be hard moving to Rannoch. The Flotilla—starships! That’s been _my_ whole life, not just me as a _quarian_. …A lot of us probably feel that way, though.”

“’Us,’” Kaidan asked, “Other quarians? Or ‘us’ on this ship?”

“Both, maybe.” Her voice was quiet against the breeze and sound of water—they were far enough out into the sea now that the beach was just a dim gray stripe behind them. “I don’t like change sometimes, Kaidan.”

“Yeah. Me neither.”

Tali took a deep breath and released it. She leaned her head back onto Kaidan’s shoulder and they stopped ‘walking’ forward.

“Rannoch might have kept the Flotilla together 300 years ago,” she said at last. “But those centuries in the fleet, _that_ is what’s going to keep us who we are now that we’re back.”

“That’s a good way of thinking about it,” Kaidan whispered as if he didn’t want to wake the waves, rather than to keep his voice down in the cramped visor. “Even with everyone in the galaxy turning your people away, you stayed together. Even with everyone blaming you for the geth, you were able to unite and stay strong.”

“’Misery loves company,’ right? Joker always says that…”

“Not exactly what I meant,” Kaidan chuckled up to the stars. “I believe in your people, Tali. And I believe in you.”

“Thank you, Kaidan.” They stood still as the moon and stars caught in the sky, Shepard’s favorite sea shushing itself with little laps of water as far as the eye could see. “…when I saw Rannoch for the first time, Shepard handed me a rock. Told me I could at least take a piece of home with me, until I could come back. I always have it with me.” She shifted next to Kaidan, finding the pocket with one finger. “For a long time, I thought it was enough. But I don’t think it’s enough for me, anymore. I’ll figure the rest out.”

The still stars twinkled. Ghost lights in pinpricks from the other side of the galaxy, their straight trajectory toward Earth muddied in the last few kilometers by a thick atmosphere. It was the plunge into turbulent air that made them shimmer.

“I have to go,” she said at last and eased off Kaidan’s shoulder. “Garrus wanted me to take a break, but sent _me_ to get the champagne while he sets something up in the forward battery.”

Kaidan laughed.

“That sounds pretty romantic…”

“It isn’t,” Tali said dryly, thought there was a hint of a smile in her tone. “Garrus, together with me and that _gun._ I’m pretty sure it’s some kind of fantasy he’s had for a while… turning in early?”

“All depends,” Kaidan sighed. “I’ve got an interview with Allers in a few minutes…”

They worked together to lift the panorama, and the sounds of the sea disappeared.

“Get some rest, Kaidan.” She patted his knee and slid out of chair, champagne glasses in her hands, then out the door.

++

“Major, we really _don’t_ have to do this tonight if you don’t want to.” Diana Allers was already sitting, a data-pad perched on one knee. “I told you I wouldn’t nag about this, I told Doctor Chakwas I only stopped by med-bay to—“

“No, it’s okay.” Kaidan pulled the chair set up for him another half-meter away from Allers’. The camera bot hovered back to compensate.

Originally, Allers had asked to have the interview in the Loft, but Kaidan had said no. Diana never pushed the issue, and no reason was given. She wondered aloud if they might use the Starboard observation lounge—for the window—but on mulling it over with Samantha in the lift, decided the tenor of the interview needed something other than a dark starfield in the background.

So, at last, she met Kaidan in the C-Deck corridor, the cargo bays on either side. Both Allers and Kaidan would be dramatically backgrounded by the window down onto the shuttle bay: brightly lit, bustling with activity, a sense of scale. Gabby had even helped her drag some scrap out and make a platform so the two could be seated (“It’s important we be seated for this. This is definitely a sit-down interview. Are there even any chairs on the ship?”) high enough up to really take advantage of the window.

“Way I see it,” Kaidan sat in his chair, smoothing his pants over his lap. “Seems like a good idea to get everything out while it’s still fresh in my mind.”

“It’s been less than twenty-four hours, Major,” she cocked an eyebrow. “You’ve been out of a coma for four. At the most.”

Kaidan blinked.

“So you’re looking for a more… well-considered take on what just happened?”

“Not exactly,” Allers rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty sure you’ve already given this whole thing a lot more thought than most of the people I could put in the hot seat. It’s just that a sit-down like this looks a lot smoother if the man on your end of the lens looks like he wants to be here. Don’t want you to feel like you’re obligated to do this _now_ is what I’m saying.”

“I’m ready,” Kaidan nodded. “Let’s go.”

“…I really _did_ just want to make sure you were alright, Kaidan.”

“I am. C’mon.”

Allers looked vaguely sick for a moment, searching Kaidan’s expression, but the Major remained stone-faced and controlled. At last, she activated the camera drone: a camera and a spotlight on both Diana and Kaidan.

The spotlights had adjusted for the two participants’ skin tone by the time Kaidan’s pupils narrowed at the sudden flash, and before even that, Diana Allers’ posture had assumed a professional ease.

“Major Alenko, I understand you’ve got a ship to run, thank you for your time.”

“’Course.”

“We are just emerging from a region of space that I’ve put on the screen—so our viewers can see—that is one of the more secluded, unexplored parts of the galaxy as we know it,” she crossed her legs at the ankles, easing back into the purely-functional chair as if it were a chaise lounge. “Major, how would you describe what the Normandy’s been doing out here?”

Kaidan’s leaned into his chair stiffly.

“We’ve just come from negotiating with one of our allies against the Reapers.”

“Leviathan.”

“That’s right.”

“From what I understand, for thousands of years, these creatures—“

“—species.”

“—this _species_ has been thought to be a myth across several cultures, correct?”

“Yes,” Kaidan’s hands slowly came together on his lap, fingers intertwining—but his eyes stayed steadfastly on Diana. “The ‘Leviathan of Dis’. It was a downed Reaper discovered by the batarians. It was obvious that something alien had destroyed it in one of the earlier extinction cycles. The work of Doctor Garret Bryson and Doctor Ann Bryson—along with their team—helped Commander Shepard locate the race responsible.”

“So would you say this is an example of inter-species cooperation?” She leaned in, “Batarians and humans solving the mystery together?”

Kaidan paused for a long moment.

“…you could say that, yeah.”

“It’s incredible to me,” Diana sighed, brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, though no strand had ever slipped loose. “Commander _Shepard_ was the one to finally put the pieces together?”

“With the help of Doctor Bryson. Both of them, actually.”

“Such a controversial figure for the batarian people,” she continued, heedless of the interruption. “Was the commander sensitive of his reputation as part of this initiative?”

“Commander Shepard is always… _aware_ of his place as an Alliance officer, as a Spectre, and as a representative of humans everywhere. But for the past year, there hasn’t been much any of us have had time to concentrate on besides the war, honestly. That’s why locating Leviathan was so important.”

“Why’s that?”

“As an ally,” Kaidan nodded. “The, umm, the archaeological evidence suggested they had survived a lotta the previous cycles. That they were capable of destroying Reapers. We needed all the allies we could get—Commander Shepard knew the whole galaxy had to be in this together.”

Allers nodded, one finger casually sliding the display on her data-pad down a page without breaking her lively eye-contact with Kaidan.

“And you found them?” She gave Kaidan a conspiratorial grin.

“It took months of tracking clues. The Reapers were after them, too.”

“Now, because this was—till now—an extremely secretive mission,” Diana directed her gaze at the camera for a moment. “My broadcasts didn’t stream during these occasional expeditions. Whenever we linked back in with the network, I was always surprised to find so many messages in my inbox from Battlespace viewers asking about the Normandy, I want to read a few of them for you.”

She held the data-pad up, read in a level tone:

> _“’Diana, I’ve been following the coverage of you embedded on the Normandy. It’s been a few days, I hope you and the Normandy are okay. My colony on Parleme was attacked two days ago, I haven’t heard from my family, I don’t think they made it. I hope Commander Shepard and the Normandy are still out there, I wish they could have saved Parleme. Dennis.’”_

She looked up at Kaidan over the edge of the data-pad, scrolled to another letter.

> _“’Dear Battlespace, caught the latest tight-beam from the Normandy of them showing up at the Cerberus invasion at Hercelian.’”_ Diana looked up, “This was… a few months ago, by the way: about the time the Normandy was investigating one of these potential leads on the rim of the galaxy. The writer continues: ‘ _The Normandy arrived in time to evacuate a few citizens and take a chunk out of the Cerberus bastards, but hundreds died, many of them my friends. I can’t help but wonder how it would have been different if the Normandy had arrived sooner. I never expected the Normandy at all, but since your broadcast had gone silent, I can’t help thinking that Commander Shepard thought he had bigger things to deal with than my little colony. Sound unfair? So was losing my family to a Cerberus strike force. V_gorlat26.’”_

Another scroll through her data-pad.

> _“’Your broadcast keeps going on long hiatus without notification. Is Commander Shepard engaged in covert operations or just lazy? I thought the whole point of embedding a journalist on a military ship was for transparency. Is Shepard a rogue agent or fighting for earth? Does he care about saving the planets we’re losing, or is he going around saving the people_ he _thinks are important? Who gave him the right?’”_

She set her data-pad down and looked up at Kaidan expectantly. The man sat still, his boot scuffing lightly against the raised dais when his legs shifted.

“Got a lot of messages like that, huh?” He smiled dourly from the corner of his mouth.

“Some more vulgar,” she admitted with a helpless grin. “Some directed at me. What do you feel, hearing letters like these?”

“…my heart goes out to them. To everyone who lost someone they love. Or lost everything.”

“And what would you say to these viewers if they were standing here,” she held up the data-pad, more letters rolling through the display window endlessly. “Knowing that the Normandy was in some back alley corner of the galaxy looking for fossils while human, asari, turian colonies were overrun. Was it worth it?”

“Who can say?” Kaidan said, after a moment, brow furrowed. “Do you mean… did convincing Leviathan to join the war save more lives than were lost because the _Normandy_ wasn’t there? I don’t know that we’ll ever know.”

“At the time, though? It was a wild goose chase, wasn’t it?”

“We had reliable intelligence that led us to Leviathan.”

“Wasn’t there also intelligence indicating the probable plan of attack for the Reapers? Early warning systems that detected Cerberus in time for Commander Shepard to mount a rescue?”

“Yes, in some cases. Yeah, there was.” He swallowed, “Commander Shepard… you make choices when you’re in command of a ship like this. And the Normandy _is_ just one ship. With a Spectre aboard, the Normandy can move without fleet-orders: respond faster, but… A war on this scale? There aren’t any easy choices. And no one felt it as hard as the Commander.”

“Is this a matter of civilians dying for military intelligence?”

“No,” Kaidan said, tone sharp, but controlled. “This is about the galaxy being over-ridden by an overwhelming force, everyone and every army spread thin, and everybody fighting for their lives and the lives of everyone they love. The people on this ship included.”

Diana closed her eyes and nodded serenely. When she opened her eyes again, they were bright once more.

“And it was a heck of an ally Shepard found out there, at the end of that chase!” She settled back into her seat, “What then?”

“The Reapers were chasing us every step of the way. That’s part of how we knew we were on the right track, actually. Anyone who spooks the Reapers is someone we wanted to meet. We finally tracked them down. Commander Shepard made first contact,” Kaidan’s folded hands clenched, but the tension stopped before it reached his shoulders. “He convinced them to fight, to come out of hiding.”

“Soldiers?” she cocked an eyebrow, “Scientists? Artillery?”

Kaidan shifted in his seat.

“Leviathan has devices which can interrupt communications, take control of Reapers and their forces. When we would deliver one of these devices into a Reaper-controlled location, Leviathan turned their own armies against them. Gave us time to evacuate, to land troops, to glass the Reapers without risking any of our own troops.”

“That’s incredible,” Diana nodded, cheek bulging as her thumb dug at a molar. She raised up her data-pad into the camera sight and read off the display, “Are these ‘devices’ able to take over organic minds as well?”

“They are, yes.”

“Like indoctrination?”

“Different.”

“How?”

“The effects aren’t lasting,” he re-situated himself again, clasping and unclasping his hands subtly on his lap. “When the… effect stops, organics recover quickly.”

She nodded for a moment longer than was comfortable.

“Leviathan used these artifacts—erm, devices—to help the resistance on about two dozen worlds, including the Battle of Earth—all without risking a single Leviathan life, it’s worth mentioning—and then?” She tipped her head to one side, “What brings the Normandy, the ship that brought them into the war, back out here?”

“A dispute with Leviathan,” Kaidan’s posture straightened. “After the war, there were some of their devices that didn’t shut off once the Reapers were dead.”

“There were rumors they had begun capturing Alliance vessels. Whole colonies—several different species. Using the same technology they’d been using on the Reapers.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Kaidan hurried to add: “They’re an old species, they’ve been out of touch for a long time. Trying to understand them and get them to understand _us_ was the hardest kind of first contact—like a species meeting beings from other worlds for the first time.”

“You’re saying this coup was, what? A big misunderstanding?” She scoffed.

“No, no. They knew what they were doing. The idea of a galaxy that works together? That solves its disputes peacefully? That was something new to them. _We_ are that galaxy, now: something they never expected.” He suppressed a shuddering sigh, “We just had to show them that.”

“I’m sure there’s plenty who would say they should have been brought to justice, then!” she shrugged. “Are they wrong for wanting retaliation?”

“We didn’t beat the Reapers by getting even. Turians and humans and krogan and salarian: we won by coming together, putting aside grievances that _everyone_ has a right to want retaliation for.”

“Should we be expecting Leviathan to have an ambassador at the Citadel, then?” she asked cheekily.

“I hope so. Someday soon. For now, they need some time to find out where they stand, like a lot of us do. The Citadel Council doesn’t force anyone to join. For now, the Leviathan wish to be left alone.”

“Like before?”

“Like before.”

“Why were they hiding?”

“They know better than anyone what the Reapers are capable of,” Kaidan cleared his throat, shifted in his seat. “Their species has survived the Reapers since the beginning.”

“The _beginning?_ ”

“Mhm,” he took a deep breath, disguised as a sagely nod. “Leviathan was the race that originally created the Reapers.”

“They’re the Reapers’ original creators?” Diana raised her eyebrows.

“And they were the first species targeted when the Reapers turned.”

“But some survived?”

“Descendants, yeah.”

“So you’re saying,” she laid her data-pad to one side and leaned forward, brows furrowed. “That all this—this whole war—was _their_ fault.”

Kaidan didn’t break his stare, his thick eyebrows weighing down his gaze.

“I wouldn’t say that, no.” He sighed, “The Reapers killed trillions, they’re the ones to blame.”

“But you’re saying this species—this _Leviathan_ —made the Reapers?” She glared, “How is it _not_ their fault?”

“The Reapers were originally created as an Aritifical Intelligence designed to analyze why so many other species were destroying themselves. They turned on their creators, turned on everyone. They _decided_ that the best way to do that was to… harvest the sentient life in the galaxy. They thought they were preserving it.”

“Major, clear this up for me, because I have a feeling my viewers are confused, too,” she picked up her data-pad, ran a finger over it as if making a note. “Are the Reapers— _were_ the Reapers—diabolical killing machines, or were they just mindless AIs?”

“They were artificial intelligence, but they _did_ choose to invade the galaxy. To murder my family and yours. They chose that.”

“How can an artificial intelligence _choose_ something it’s not programmed to do?”

“That’s artificial intelligence,” he shrugged seriously, “capable of all the same choices as any sentient. Capable of being just as sentient—organic—as you or me, or being completely alien.”

“But you say they were doing what they were programmed to?”

“The Reapers considered this kind of killing to be fulfilling their mission. Storing the collective intelligence of all the sentient species within themselves before the civilization could destroy itself. They were given a purpose by Leviathan—like parents might give to a child—and they chose to accept that purpose, and to fulfill it with murder.”

“And you wouldn’t say these Leviathan bear the responsibility for that? Could you say that to the families of the dead on Thessia?” Her lip trembled, but she held her data-pad below the camera line with a delicate touch. “On Bekenstein—my home? The Citadel? On Earth?”

“I ask myself the same question,” Kaidan’s voice was gravelly and low. “Then I ask myself, even if they _were_ responsible, should their children—born millions of years later—take the blame of that mistake? Yes, I absolutely think they bear some responsibility for what their people have done, a responsibility to make it right that I’m glad they finally accepted when they joined the war. But more than that? Are they responsible for reparations? I don’t have the mind to start answering that question.”

“How would you answer that question, personally?”

“…all I can do is keep my mind focus on who’s responsible for what we lost, and how we beat them. I want to be… so angry about the loved ones I’ve lost: the men, the women. The children. Then I close my eyes… and I see the Reapers tearing apart Thessia, Vancouver— _my_ home, Tuchanka. I’ve spoken to a Reaper, I can hear its voice when I close my eyes. _That’s_ how I choose who’s to blame.”

His jaw was tight for a moment, but Diana didn’t speak. He continued.

“We’re going to rebuild, but we’ll never get back the people we lost in this war. Now that the Reapers are gone, that doesn’t mean that all the hurt is. Some of it never will be. And there’s still so much anger left. Only, there’s no one to direct that anger at anymore. I _want_ someone to be angry at. It’s going to be easy to blame our governments, our leaders—hell, even ourselves. I understand that—really, I do! But along with all that anger, there’s hope now, too. For the first time since we learned about the Reapers three years ago, we’re in control of our own future, again. I hope people protect that hope, whatever else they do.”

Allers had her data-pad on its edge, balanced on her knee by a single finger. The silence stretched on.

“That’s what I love about being on the Normandy,” said Allers, a smirk slowly overtaking the look of comfortable, respectful control she’d been wearing. “Shepard’s crew has been through enough to be able to give a little pep talk like it’s nothing.”

“Only when we have the time,” Kaidan returned her smile.

“Would you have used violence against Leviathan?”

“I would have used all the power at my disposal to prevent another war, absolutely. I’m just grateful it didn’t come to that… that they agreed to back down, peacefully.”

“A soldier and a peacemaker, Major Alenko.” She re-crossed her legs without any part of her in-frame shifting. “Words often used to describe Commander Shepard. He’s practically a legend in Council space. I’ve had my interviews and spent plenty of time on this ship, but you served with him. What’s it like to serve with the commander?”

“You stop seeing people as anything other than people, once you’ve served with them,” Kaidan answered evenly, his composure returning.

“See, I find that interesting,” she sat up in her chair, hair falling to one side when she tipped her head. “Everything that happens on this ship is living history. Shepard’s every move. That really doesn’t weigh on you? At all?”

“I’m not responsible to history,” Kaidan shrugged. “I’m responsible to the inhabitants of this galaxy, to my friends, to my crew and my CO. Really, we’re not that different from anyone else watching this: we’re fighting for our home and our loved ones and working together with everyone, same as everyone. Shepard will be the first to admit that.”

“Not everyone at home is going to have high schools named after them,” she retorted.

“Right place at the right time, and a commitment to his duty. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that it was _Shepard_ …” the words caught in his throat. He tried again. His voice caught again. “That it was Shepard…” he coughed, “Shepard… who was… there… in the end. For us.”

“And, knowing that your mission has been so historic…” Diana Allers rushed to cover Kaidan’s voice with her own. She pontificated until Kaidan had cleared his throat and his eyes had stopped glistening, finally getting to her question as the redness began to fade from the rim of his eyelids. “…and I think I know the answer to this, but is there every any jealousy? Knowing that even this mission to negotiate with Leviathan—historic in its own right—will likely be attributed to Shepard? In all those history books at ‘Shepard Elementary’ and ‘Benjamin Shepard High?’”

Kaidan managed a small chuckle.

“No. That doesn’t bother me at all. I’m comfortable doing my job and keeping my people safe. I’m not looking to make history. I don’t think I’ll be very memorable.”

Diana guffawed and nodded at the camera.

“For the sake of my ratings, I hope you’re wrong!” They both shared in a polite laugh before Diana sobered. “But really, about the ‘legendary’ status. There are plenty of my viewers concerned about what will happen now that the war is over. The new galactic cooperation not only means we’ve settled old grudges, it also means that all the important players now know one another, and are not only politicians, but heroes as well. Do you think it’s a dangerous time for demagoguery?”

“After the things I’ve seen,” Kaidan gazed out the window, down into the shuttle-bay. “I guess I can’t deny that anything’s possible. The one thing I know for sure is that the people of this galaxy just proved they’re not going to stand for someone _else’s_ plan for their lives.”

“And what about those who are accountable only to their own image, rather than to the voter? When we all owe our lives to Commander Shepard, or to Admiral Hackett, Urdnot Wrex, Primarch Victus: unelected officials. What’s to stop these kinds of heroes exerting their influence? Exploiting their celebrity?”

Kaidan thought about that for a long moment.

“Nothing but you—you folks, you all—“ he gestured at the camera. “Same thing that defeated the Reapers. Just gotta remember that… everyone’s gonna make mistakes, everyone needs correction. It’s one of those lessons we keep learning over and over, and we always think ‘ _this_ time I’ve got it.’ But our myths—I guess our history books, too—don’t always _get_ it. Just remember… we don’t live in a legend. We live… here. Now. We’re just… loving who we have to love and living the best we can… standing up for what’s right. Arguing for it because it’s important _now_.”

He finished with a shrug. Diana nodded calmly along. She cleared her throat and adjusted one strap of her dress.

“Finally, Major, I hope you’ll forgive me, but it’s not often you get a living witness to history in your interview chair.” She changed files in her data-pad, “Speaking of short memories, anyhow. Any stories from the final push in London is becoming an over-night sensation, and plenty of it sounds sensational. But _I_ happen to have with me a transcript of the final speech Commander Shepard gave to the crew of the Normandy before that fateful run for the Citadel Transport Beam. There’s only one problem…”

She paused. Kaidan cocked an eyebrow.

“Oh, uh, yeah: What’s that?”

“I have two…” her eyes twinkled. “The first I received from a salarian scout who was nearby during the speech, but the _other_ is from a young human lieutenant evacced before the final push. This will be the first time anyone ever hears these words, and since you were one of the crew who heard this address, I was wondering if you could tell me which of the two is the real deal. Would you do that for us, Major?”

“Uh, I guess I could take a listen?” He swallowed hard, “Shepard has a better memory, or… EDI had…”

She handed him the data-pad.

“Actually, I’d be honored if you would read the two, Major?”

The camera drone drifted closer for the zoom, arcing around to get a better angle on Kaidan: slightly lower and backlit by the lights from the cargo-bay. Kaidan took the data-pad with a look full of consternation. He cleared his throat.

> “ _’ This war has brought you here today, it will define each of you. You may be a brother to someone, a daughter, a son. But today, you're a soldier. The Reapers gave you a purpose and you accepted the challenge. You all chose to be here. Each of you chose to stand and fight._
> 
> _“’The next few hours will decide the fate of everyone in the galaxy. Every mother, every son, every unborn child. They're trusting on you. Depending on you to win them their future, a future free from the threat of the Reapers._
> 
> _“’Expect no mercy, show no mercy. You fight, or you die.’”_

Kaidan looked up, his eyes red-rimmed again. This time, Allers did not step in, instead gently prompting him to read the next version. He turned back to the data-pad, this time, hoarse as he began to speak.

> _“’This war has brought us pain and suffering and loss, but it's also brought us together. As soldiers, allies… friends. This bond that ties us together is something the Reapers will never understand. It's more powerful than any weapon, stronger than any ship. It can’t be taken or destroyed._
> 
> _“’_ _One way or another, this war ends today. There will be no second chances and no room for mistakes. Each of you needs to be willing to die to win the day, anything less, and you're already dead._
> 
> _“’But take heart. Look around you: you're not in this fight alone. We face our enemy together. And together, we will defeat them.’”_

The seconds ticked by, with Kaidan still bent over the data-pad. The camera bot slowly pulled back, resumed its original position, focused again on Diana and Kaidan together. Allers seemed to know the moment it had readjusted.

“…very well read, Major Alenko. Thank you,” she said softly. “So, which is the genuine article?”

Kaidan looked for a long moment.

“In… uhh… it’s a hard time to think back about…” he cleared his throat. “A painful time and… a hectic time… I remember this speech. I do. But… as far as exactly which one is word-for-word Shepard’s speech—if that’s, uh, if that’s possible—I just… can’t say, for sure.”

“I suppose that’s one part of the Shepard legend historians will get to pick for themselves then, hm?” Her voice was gentle now.

“They always do, I guess…” Kaidan flicked through the data-pad once more. “…I’m pretty sure… that he said ‘together’…”

“Together, huh” Diana laughed.

“…it was the big take-away for me, anyhow.”

++

> _When Kaidan stood in the darkness this time, it was not as it had been below the surface on Despoina. The air felt cool, crisp, and there was a light playing at a horizon as far away as forever, as if the sun was just about to rise._
> 
> _There was a watery feeling behind him, as if a calm bay was hoping to be stirred by the morning wind so its ripples could catch the first rays of sunlight._
> 
> _Liara was beside him, peering off into the darkness behind him even as he stared out to the razor thin band of light. Her deep breaths throbbed in the expanse, as if they would find a reply out in the infinite. Or, as if her deep inhales would call up the breeze._

…and then they both sat in the Captain’s cabin, knees touching, facing one another on the sofa.

Liara took her hands off his face, her eyes returning to blue in a blink.

“There’s definitely something there,” she sighed, biting her lip, “But… I’m afraid I’m not skilled enough to find it. A matriarch would have better luck.”

“Thanks for trying, Liara,” Kaidan smiled, easing himself back into the couch.

“I can contact my father once we’re back to the Sol System. Assuming somebody’s finds a way to open the Citadel again soon. I imagine there are more people than we realize who are suffering the after-effects of indoctrination… and Shepard… if the cure is in your mind…”

“Yeah,” Kaidan closed his eyes, a light shiver prompting him to draw his arms tight at his sides.

“You’re in a lot of pain,” she touched his head once more, as if she were as familiar with it as her own temple: the lingering of the joining. “I could feel it, you should get some rest.”

“I will. I’ve done plenty of sleeping lately, though.”

She nodded and let her fingers slip fron his face.

“Kaidan,” Liara faced the fish tank, herarms crossed, “I wanted to tell you… how thankful I was to see you step off that shuttle.”

When she turned back, her smile was bittersweet and she continued.

“You’re still the man I met years ago on the Normandy. My first friend on a ship full of aliens. Asking me about my biotics,” she sniffed, or it may have been a small laugh, “Asking me about my mother. I don’t know how you did what you did talking to Leviathan, but I know you did the right thing. I…” she cradled his hand in hers,  “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Wasn’t ready to throw my life away just yet,” Kaidan smiled weakly.

“The Kaidan Alenko I know, my friend, wouldn’t think twice about giving his life if it meant saving someone else. But he wouldn’t give up his soul for anything.”

“…I’ve been trying to remember that, lately.”

“You will,” she answered, and sat back on the sofa, “You have people that can help remind you. You have more than just your life to offer. Maybe now… things can be different. No more sacrifices. No more impossible choices.”

“Yeah,” Kaidan smirked, eyes drooping closed, “That’d be nice.”

“What will you do when we get back?”

He rubbed at his temples, eyes scanning the room: the untouched bed, the obsessively clean fish-tank, the folded piles of tailored uniform pants sitting beside the drawers.

“I feel old,” Kaidan muttered, “maybe I’ll retire. First, I’ll stay with Shepard. I’m… I’m tired of being apart from him.”

“I think you’ve earned a rest,” she smiled warmly, coming to her feet, “and speaking of which, you should get some sleep. I imagine it will be nice to sleep in your own bed again after spending a night in the medbay.”

She nodded to the pristinely made bed, and Kaidan chuckled.

“Sure.”

“Sleep well,” Liara set down a small metal disc on the coffee table, and when she pressed a switch, EDI’s holo sculpture sprung up in a beam of color and light, “It’s a beautiful sculpture. Joker asked me to return it to you, Tali’s done with it, it was the first piece she started decrypting. Seemed like a good start, don’t you think?”

Kaidan nodded and Liara ran her fingers through the shapes hanging in the air before softly exiting the cabin. He stared after her, long after she must surely have ducked into the lift and gone to her own quarters. He slid a data-pad out from between the couch cushions, scrolled to end of his journal entry, and began to type.

> _I think this has been the longest 24 hours of my life._
> 
> _I shouldn’t complain: when Shepard died, that week felt like it lasted for a year. All those psyche evals and debriefings and the funeral and the wake. Why does today feel even longer than that? I guess I just had a lot to do. People who wanted to talk. Interview with Diana. Hell of a migraine._
> 
> _Makes me feel like a spoiled brat. Everyone’s okay, and Ben’s going to be okay, too. I guess it’s just now that we’re heading home, now that Leviathan’s as handled as it’s going to be, I feel impatient. Like a little kid. Made this day last forever. I should go to sleep._
> 
> _But I know I’m just going to lie awake and think about that damn ocean some more, that Leviathan. I’m trying to wrap my head around what happened, how I should feel about all this. It should have been Shepard down there. He wouldn’t have needed a ‘Plan B’. They respect him, I think, no matter what they say. I don’t blame them. Only reason anyone wants to know Ben's speech in London is because they know they're going to remember London forever. And they want to gobble up every little piece of London and every little piece of Shepard to keep that memory insulated. Guess the way I feel these days, I can't say I blame them._

Kaidan looked down at the scar on his hand: the wound where the Echo Shard had cut into his palm had mostly closed, it would be a wide, white scar soon.

> _Javik was right, though: I could have ended it right then and there. Maybe I should have. I don’t have Ben’s luck, for all I know I just instigated a galactic war my kids will have to fight._
> 
> _Kids. Huh._
> 
> _In the echo shard, Ben was thinking about kids. Ever since I joined the Alliance, I never thought I ever would have a family like that. Sure, my dad did. But I wanted to be different from him. Show him how committed I was, or how I just wanted to be anything different at all. Retire with a white moustache and a chest full of medals and a little cabin for just me, my picture hanging on the wall at the academy._
> 
> _All seems pretty stupid now. Can’t even pass it all off as being a kid, either. I was old enough to know I wasn’t thinking about the Alliance, at all. I’ve repeated a lot of my dad’s mistakes. Some of them I walked straight into, other ones I didn’t even see coming. But I’ve avoided a lot, too. He’s gone, now. My dad is dead. Why does it still have to be so complicated?_
> 
> _I wish Ben was here. I wish I could lay on that bed and just talk. I wish I could lay on that bed and listen. I just wish he was here._
> 
> _Even if he was, though, it wouldn’t be like old times. I need to get that through my thick skull, too. Now that I’ve been down there, met Leviathan, enthralled, freezing, I don’t think that was all that’s got Shepard messed up. Ben’s got some deep problems, I feel wrecked for him. With his past, I wonder if he even knows how to feel that?_
> 
> _At the end, in the echo shard, when all his memories played: there was happy and sad and angry and everything in between. But nothing where he just let himself_ be _or feel that trauma. There’s a lot of happy memories in that man’s mind, how many guys can say they got to ‘see’ their boyfriend’s best memories, huh? Still. There’s more to him than that, too. And so much more pain. It doesn’t matter. He’s not alone anymore._
> 
> _Still, seeing him like that, with Leviathan wearing his face, up out of bed and looking just like I remembered. That was rough as hell. I didn’t expect anything like that. Nothing like that. Not in a million years. Because I want that Ben back, and I feel like a monster for it. Not even for him, but for me:_ I _want to come home to that Ben Shepard, standing tall, confident. I want him there for me in a way he can’t be anymore._

Kaidan erased the word ‘anymore’ and replace it with ‘right now.’

> _Seeing Ash, Jenkins. Seeing my dad. That hurt too, but. But that’s different. I miss my dad, I’m sorry I’ll never get to tell him who I became, after all. I’m sorry I had to live while Ashley had to die. Jenkins never got to grow up. I got to see myself. Not the way I look in the mirror, the way I look in my head. Maybe it’s not so different from Shepard, after all._
> 
> _Have I been loving an image of Shepard? Something not-real? I’ve never cared for anyone like I care about Ben, I feel like I betrayed him: the way I feel about that illusion. Leviathan said that Shepard didn’t see me as the kind of man who could kill off a whole damn species. Have I been hiding from Ben? Only letting him love an image? I don’t know. Have I changed?_
> 
> _I don’t even know if I can be what Shepard needs anymore._
> 
> _No. Ben’s had a lot of tough choices, too many. He chose me. It was an easy choice. Heh, picked by a legend. But I didn’t choose to be with a legend. Just to be with Ben. I love him._
> 
> _I’m not going to think about this anymore. I’m so sick of thinking. Sick of going round and round and round. I want to be with Ben. Now. I’ve spent so much time trying to do what’s right, trying to help as many people as possible, to be the soldier people needed. Now the person who needs me is Shepard, and I want that more than anything. I’ll worry about if I’m good enough, later._
> 
> _I don’t know what’s real anymore, whether I’m who I used to be or whether I was only in love with Ben when he was ‘strong.’I don’t care anymore. All those images. Just going to have to watch, learn from them. Go after what I need._
> 
> _It’s time to go home. Really go home, for the first time in my life._

EDI’s holo-sculpture turned silently, her literalization of herself and her metaphor for Kaidan and Shepard. Perhaps Tali would discover how to decode the correspondent parts of the artistry: find the truth about the AI that could be reprogrammed into her with rigorous code, but it was so much more than that. For now, it was astoundingly beautiful, it lit the room, it would spin forever if allowed.

Kaidan leaned in, “Almost home, Ben.” He whispered the word to the sculpture, lips nearly pressed into the hologram, one golden ribbon of light quivering in the breath he exhaled.

He regarded the bed for a moment. Then, he laid his body out on the sofa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Reunion.


	59. The Difference between Back Together and Reunted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan comes back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long time, I'm very sorry. If you've been reading this piecemeal, you may want to real quick skim the last section of Chapter 58, just for the best effect. Thank you very much for being so great.

Kaidan stood in the doorway of Shepard’s hospital room, a silhouette against the light from the hall. His shadow on the floor showed him hunched, exhausted limbs sagging: limp muscles clinging to his bones, held up only by balance and sheer will.

Shepard lay, back to the door, restless but asleep. He was an atrophied shape beneath his blankets. The sound of monitors and respirators clicking and humming the only thing animating the room, splashes of wind-driven waves lapping at a rocky shore, breath hesitant as if he were a boy floating and afraid to sink. 

The door slid closed behind him, and Kaidan tipped forward, one foot in front of the other till he came to Shepard’s bedside. He leaned over, found Shepard’s eyes closed, even breaths, the gentlest shiver. Kaidan almost smiled, as if his face wouldn’t articulate the sentiment.

With a sharp intake of breath, he put a knee on the bed, then the other. He spooned up behind Shepard. When he eased himself down into the mattress, his breath came out in one long, warm exhale. His arms were around Shepard again, feeling the rise and fall of his stomach as he slept, the warmth that radiated off his back and into Kaidan’s own chest, the scent of Shepard’s hair, still him beneath the anti-septic air in the room. When he stirred, startling awake, Kaidan soothed a hand down his body, pressing a hush into the side of Shepard’s neck.

“Shh, it’s okay. It’s me, Ben,” he whispered, saying more with gentle caresses. “It’s Kaidan. I’m here.”

“…Kaidan?” Shepard’s voice was a hollow rasp, but shaking fingers soon tangled in Kaidan’s on his chest. “…Leviathan?”

“It’s over,” Kaidan mumbled, tears wetting Shepard’s neck. He struggled to keep his eyes open. When Shepard raised his head off the pillow, Kaidan slid his arm beneath Shepard’s neck.

“Are you,”—Shepard needed a deep breath—“alright?”

“They let everyone go. The galaxy’s safe.”

“You?” Shepard repeated, struggling to turn in Kaidan’s arms, “ _You?”_

Kaidan held Shepard fast, front to back, until Shepard’s body relaxed back into his arms.

“I’m fine,” He breathed. The longer he lay, the heavier his body seemed to press into the mattress, his head lolling forward against Shepard’s, sinking into the same depression in the pillow.

“’M glad,” Shepard sighed, his breaths rising and falling beneath Kaidan’s arms wrapped around him. “I was worried about you.”

“I told you, Ben,” Kaidan drew his knees up till they pressed against the back of Shepard’s thighs, “I told you I would fight like hell to hold you again.”

They lay together a long time, their breathing coming into and drifting out of sync with one another, hovering at the threshold of exhausted sleep.

Shepard curled away from Kaidan, pulling his body to edge of the bed.

“…Kaidan, I need to explain.” He needed another deep breath, “What happened on the Citadel…” Shepard finally managed to turn himself over on the bed, eyes boring into Kaidan. He still wore the fierce determination of the first human Spectre.

“Ben,” Kaidan pressed in close, brow to brow with the man he loved, “I saw it. I saw everything in the Echo Shard. I was there with you… or… you were there with me. I felt everything you felt.” Shepard swallowed, eyes disbelieving. “And I love you, Ben.” Kaidan’s voice cracked as he confessed, glossy eyed and vulnerable.

“…Echo Shard?” Shepard quivered in Kaidan’s arms. He whispered, dry lips sharing breaths with the man who held him, “But… all those people… EDI, the geth… it was supposed to be the final evolution…”

“Shhhh,” Kaidan stroked down the side of his face, perhaps as much to silence his own worries as to quiet Shepard. “You did the right thing, Ben. You did. I know you can’t believe me yet… but so help me… I’m going to tell you every day… just…” He swallowed hard. Shepard’s face softened watching Kaidan struggle with his words, and very slowly, the expression of guilt and determination was mixed with a protective warmth. “…just let me help you. Don’t leave me behind again,” Kaidan finished, exhaling with the strain of fighting through his emotions.

“But—“ he shivered again, eyes wandering away from Kaidan’s lucid stare to his weary face. “—Oh, you’re… you’re tired. Just… I’m sorry, you need rest.” With a little struggle, he hurried to settle himself back, close to his lover. They lay staring for a long time, the soft hum of the medical equipment lost in the sounds of their breathing. Shepard turned to kiss the hand stroking his face, lips laid to scar tissue. He pulled the hand back, gently traced a gnarled finger down the new skin where Kaidan had clutched the Echo Shard so hard he’d cut himself. The flesh had healed an ashy white, a thick, ragged bolt across the lines in his palm.

“This one’s new,” Shepard whispered. Kaidan nodded.

“Speak for yourself.” He whispered, eyelashes brushing against Shepard’s cheek. He ran his hand along a new glowing scar splitting open Shepard’s cheek from ear to nostril. Shepard began to frown, but Kaidan soothed the expression from his face with a brush of his thumb across Shepard’s lips. “Least yours’ll heal.” He smiled.

Shepard watched his lover’s eyelids flutter for a moment. “You can get that scar healed too, you know.”

“No,” Kaidan whispered even more quietly, head shaking ever so slightly despite the fact that his eyelids had grown too heavy to keep open, “I need to keep this one. It’s important.” He shivered. “I need to remember it all… even…” His eyelashes glistened, brows pressing down as if to push the memories of the last week out of his head. Shepard didn’t waste a moment: kissing Kaidan’s forehead smooth, putting his arms around him and holding him tightly.

“I know what it’s like, Kaidan,” Shepard said, quiet as the deepest secret. “Leviathan.”

Kaidan’s body sagged at the mention of the name, as if a burden had been stolen off his shoulders—the lightness unexpected.

“I saw so many things, Ben. And I was prepared to…” he began with a choked voice, struggling to lift his heavy eyelids. Shepard shushed him gently, pulling his body in close.

“You can tell me everything in your own time. I believe in you, Kaidan. I’ve never stopped. Through everything. And I never will. I love you Kaidan.” He pressed his mouth so gently to Kaidan’s, felt the quiver of the other man’s lip and repeated. “Never stop. I love you.”

“It’s been… I haven’t slept in a long time.” Kaidan’s voice was wracked, exhaustion allowing the tremors of emotion to rattle through his resolve.

“Sleep.”

“…there’s a lot… it’s a long road… I should…”

“Shh. I love you. Sleep.”

“Just…” Kaidan’s voice had begun to slur, body curling into the warmth of Shepard’s arms around him. “Don’t let me fall asleep in your bed… Ben…”

“Sleep.”                             

“…just a few minutes…”

The drifted off in one another’s arms. They slept for hours and hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> Shepard and Kaidan take stock of the road to recovery.


	60. The Difference between Memory and Imagination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard slowly recovers.

> _“Goodbye Kaidan,” Shepard couldn’t stand to merely think the words, and muttered them into the air hoping they would echo all the way back to his beloved’s ears._
> 
> _The Citadel Gun was pointing itself at the Charon relay, and he knew that when it fired, the Citadel tower would fill with radiation._
> 
> _He had never before faced ‘the end’, he was Commander Shepard, and he had held fate itself hostage to win the day. He had fought the Reapers and won against those evil bastards, too. But this time was_ his _time for real. But the galaxy would be safe, and Kaidan would live!_
> 
> _Perhaps Kaidan would find new love: Shepard did not want to be a weight on Kaidan’s future. If he was going to die, he would not want that to be his memorial! Kaidan deserved the best, the absolute best! Shepard didn’t believe that he was irreplaceable in his lover’s heart—that is, he would always have a corner of the stoic Major’s affections, but was not the Only One, for sure—but worried that, with the world suddenly saved from the brink of Armageddon, the stress would hold his memory in Kaidan like a blood clot between his heart and his brain._
> 
> _The quiet beauty in his Kaidan’s face was never far from his mind, and all Shepard had to do was close his eyes to see it now. He pictured those eyes lit like autumn sunlight shining through red-brown leaves smiling at another man and living a long and happy life. He pictured that perfect brow hardened and cold and black as ancient lava flows, his happiness buried with Shepard._
> 
> _He much preferred the first vision: Kaidan was his One and Only, but Kaidan should have love! Happiness! He had loved his Still and Quiet Lighthouse since they were at school together, but much of the man still felt like a mystery to him._
> 
> _“Oh Kaidan, please be happy!” He spoke louder this time, shouting to hear himself over the staccato cacophony of the Citadel Gun warming up. How he cursed himself for not insuring Kaidan would move on without him before he came back to this damn planet! Though he did not regret their last night together in the slightest—in fact, the memory of those passionate hours filled him with warmth—he hated that he had been so selfish as to not tell Kaidan “No matter what happens to me, please! Please find love again, Kaidan! I cannot bear the thought of you alone!”_
> 
> _In truth, he thought that Kaidan and he would be together at the end. But though Shepard was a hero of mythic proportions, this was not a story, and Shepard was alone. He preferred it this way, anyhow, he would never have allowed Kaidan to brave the Reaper infested streets and the death that even now awaited Shepard as the Citadel Gun lit up like a golden fury._
> 
> _But now, how could he make sure his Smoky Eyed Love would learn to love again? He reached for his omni-tool—a letter! No, the radiation from the Citadel Gun was already too strong to allow a signal through! He would leave the message on his omni-tool for Kaidan! No! The explosion would surely vaporize him._
> 
> _“If only there were more time!” he shouted. He would turn the Citadel gun not to the Relay, but to the moon! Carve “I Love You, Kaidan. Do Not Let Me Weigh You Down!” on the lunar surface with the deadly weapon the Protheans had designed to kill the Reapers._
> 
> _But that was impossible as well. There was no way to make sure Kaidan moved on when Shepard was dead!_
> 
> _Shepard decided at that moment that he_ must _live! If not to be with Kaidan, than at least to assure him that he should find happiness wherever and with whomever he could!_
> 
> _The Citadel Gun was primed and ready, pointing at the Relay, ready to enact Shepard’s Justice on the galaxy. Shepard took hold of the twin control joysticks, his fingers steady as a surgeon’s on the two triggers._
> 
> _“For the crimes you have committed against the people of this galaxy,” cried Shepard. “For the pain and suffering you have caused, all the families you tore asunder, all the lovers you deprived of the other half of their souls, and for the beauty you robbed from the world…” he tightened his grip. “I, Commander Benjamin Shepard, will purify this galaxy of the fear you have tainted it with!”_
> 
> _He gave a wicked smirk._
> 
> _“Reapers, you can call me the_ Grim Reaper!”
> 
> _He pulled the triggers._
> 
> _“…for you, my love.”_
> 
> _The Citadel Gun fired its deadly beam! The force was so great, the whole Citadel shook and the Crucible rattled, and the explosion blazed back down to Shepard’s firing room._
> 
> _“FOR YOU, KAIDAN!”_
> 
> _As the flames licked around him, he summoned every ounce of his strength—or was it every ounce of his love?—and projected it out from his body in a colossal biotic barrier._
> 
> _******_
> 
> _Shepard was still alive, Kaidan could feel it._
> 
> _His crew had always believed the stone-faced, solemn major to have supernatural powers. It was something about his L2 implant: instead of the faulty implant robbing him of his sanity, he was the only human being who had tamed it and harnessed its unbelievable power. Any man able to overcome the Biotic Madness must surely have a command of awesome powers even others biotics could only dream of._
> 
> _It was why so many shunned him, but not Shepard. Of course Kaidan let neither the rumors nor cold-shoulders affect him. But he wouldn’t waste time quelling silly notions either. Let them believe what they wished to believe._
> 
> _But this time, Kaidan truly_ could feel _something in the wake of the great explosion._ _The Citadel Gun had fired through the thick of the Reaper fleet, and the Reapers were writhing in space, dying painfully._
> 
> _“Still only a fraction of the pain you caused,” said Kaidan. “Still better than you deserve!”_
> 
> _From the Captain’s chair, he turned his eye to the Citadel, big explosions erupting all over it, and the Chamber of the Crucible Gun breaking apart into pieces. Shepard had been right at the Firing Room, now on fire. Shepard was_ still _there! He had to be._
> 
> _No, Kaidan wasn’t wont for vain hope or fooling himself—no matter how much he loved Shepard (more than he had ever loved anyone or anything in his life, more than he thought he was capable of loving), he could not deny evidence if it reason told him Shepard was dead—but this was not vain hope._
> 
> _He felt Shepard. More precisely, he felt the strongest biotic field he had ever felt in his life! Stronger even than his own, and it had the steady, bright blaze of his Commander and his Lover in it._
> 
> _Shepard was alive!_
> 
> _“This is Major Alenko,” said Kaidan as soon as he activated the shipboard radio, “We must get out of this system, but we will come back. And for those of you who are afraid that Commander Shepard has perished to win this war, do not fear! Commander Shepard_ is _alive!”_
> 
> _Then softly, to himself, he declared._
> 
> _“I love you more than life, Shepard. I won’t rest until I find you!”_
> 
> _******_
> 
> _Normandy fled with the rest of the fleet to regroup and ensure that the Reaper threat had indeed been defeated all across the galaxy. Kaidan began immediately arguing with admiral after admiral that he must return to the Citadel for Commander Shepard._
> 
> _“He’s certainly dead, Major!” One admiral said._
> 
> _“There is no way he could have survived!” said another._
> 
> _“We have important work to do away from Sol!” said a third when he went above the head of the first two._
> 
> _But every system they visited showed that the Reapers had been killed everywhere. Kaidan had argued that the fleet should be in Sol, assuring civilians that the war was truly over—yes, the Reapers on Earth had all perished in the blast of the Citadel Gun, but those who had been fighting for their homes and in the streets didn’t have the benefit of knowing what the brass knew—and telling them that they had truly won was the most important consideration._
> 
> _The brass did not agree: the treaty obligations with the Citadel Council meant they were responsible for ensuring other systems were safe._
> 
> _At last, Kaidan Alenko pulled the card he didn’t want to have to pull._
> 
> _He invoked his Spectre authority: the Citadel was out of communication, and Normandy’s speed was better served racing back to Earth to investigate._
> 
> _“You’ll be court martialed, Major!” shouted his pilot._
> 
> _“It’s worth it, to save Shepard!” he declared._
> 
> _His crew agreed. They all loved Shepard. But none loved him more than Kaidan._

 

“Oh my god,” Miranda sighed from her desk, head held in her hands above the data-pad on which she was slowly reprogramming Shepard’s spinal ganglia VIs. “I can’t believe the two of you are actually _reading_ these…”

“You didn’t think that was just a little sweet?” Shepard laughed, just a hint of a shudder in his voice when he spoke.

The Normandy had returned to Earth only a few days ago, and Kaidan had spent more than ten hours each day at Shepard’s bed side, only pulled away grudgingly when he received an apologetic summons from Joker. It wasn’t long before Shepard had asked Kaidan to read him something.

“What’d you have in mind?” Kaidan had asked, leaning over the bed to press a kiss onto his forehead.

“I wanted to have you read the rest of the… uhhh,” Shepard had snapped his fingers, brow scrunched up, “The book series. The one your dad…?”

“Oh, the _Deptford Trilogy?_ Want me to start over from the beginning?”

“I do, but,” Shepard had swallowed, “Not right now. Eventually. If… I ever… get better.” Miranda had almost spoken up, then, but went back to coding and pretending not to be listening in. “Once I’m a little more sure that my mind is… _mine_ again.”

So Kaidan clutched his hand tighter and nodded softly.

Today, instead, Kaidan began reading a Spectre Slash Fiction downloaded from his messages.

“’Saccharine’ is what _I_ thought it was,” Miranda shook her head.

Kaidan laid the data-pad next to Shepard’s hand, stretched his back against the little chair that had remained planted by Shepard’s bed.

“And that one’s even new,” he stretched his arms up above his head, his speech momentarily lost in the yawn that erupted out of his mouth. “Col Vedirus just sent me a whole bunch of new ones this morning. Guess some of the writers on the Citadel have been busy. Crazy.”

“’Crazy’ isn’t even the right word,” Miranda kicked back in her own chair with her code.

“People were trapped on the Citadel and kept writing about _us_?” Shepard scooched closer to the edge of the bed, held his hand out for Kaidan to grasp. “I think that’s something.”

Neither Miranda nor Kaidan answered, both lost for a moment in their respective data-pads. Shepard’s brow scrunched, head cocking to the side suddenly. Kaidan moved forward calmly, held fast to his hand and made sure Shepard was fully covered by his blanket.

“Hey, Ben.” He pressed his lips to Shepard’s ear, not whispering—the voices Shepard didn’t hear whispered—but speaking with an intimacy no hallucination could manage. “Focus on me. You’re safe. I’m right here.”

Shepard, eyes squeezed tight, nodded. The sinews on his neck stood out, and the scars on his face glowed orange. As he began to relax, Kaidan brushing fingers through his hair, Miranda came over to the bed.

“Alright, Shepard,” she began adjusting the bed, bringing Shepard up to sitting. “Ready for another test?”

Shepard seemed relieved at the distraction, nodded emphatically.

“All set,” he coughed. “What’ll you be operating on today, Doctor Frankenstein?”

“Don’t start with me, Shepard,” she smirked. “I built you, and I can destroy you.”

Kaidan watched her warmly , and the two exchanged a private look of mutual gratitude while Shepard had his eyes squeezed shut.

“Fair enough,” Ben managed a strangled chuckled.

“Does this mean today’s leg day?” Kaidan smiled, stood to help adjust the pillows under Shepard’s head.

“I don’t want to make any promises,” Miranda shrugged. “But if I have to look through nineteen million lines of code to find my error again, I’m going to need a drink.”

“Can you feel this?” Kaidan smirked at Ben, hand under the blanket and tickling the sole of Shepard’s foot.

“I haven’t activated the spinal ganglia yet,” Miranda said.

“He just likes toying with me,” Shepard smiled, holding eye contact with Kaidan. Miranda suppressed the smile that came to the corner of her lips.

“Here we go…” She pressed a button on her data-pad, and Shepard squinted for a moment. Kaidan rolled up the blanket to expose Shepard’s feet: pink and soft. He brandished a thin needle he’d had ready since yesterday, when Miranda had said Shepard’s legs were almost ready for a test run.

“Feel that?” He wiggled Shepard’s big toe between finger and thumb. Shepard clenched his jaw and shook his head. “Alright, let’s take it slow, then.” His voice was calm, a familiar level rumble deep in his chest as he picked up the needle. “Tell me which foot, right or left.”

He tapped the needle into Shepard’s left sole.

“…did you start?” Shepard’s voice was dry, shaking.

“Mhmm.”

He tapped again.

“I… uhh… hmmm.”

“Just close your eyes, Shepard,” Miranda’s knuckles were practically white, clutching her data-pad. “Don’t stress yourself. You can’t _make_ it work if it isn’t working.”

Kaidan tucked the needle into his thick beard so it lay along his jaw, ran one knuckle softly up Shepard’s left sole, instead.

“…left?”

“’Are you asking, or telling?’” Kaidan smirked.

“Left.” Shepard swallowed.

“Good.”

He laid the softest touch against Ben’s right sole.

“Right. That’s the right.” He answered much more quickly, this time.

“Mhmm. Next.”

“…that’s the right again.”

“Good.” After a few more, he waggled Shepard’s big toe again, gently kneaded Shepard’s sole between his thumbs. He pinched from toe to toe. When Shepard simply nodded slowly, Kaidan brandished the needle once again. He took Shepard gently by the hand. “Now you’re going to tell me ‘sharp’…” he pricked the needle onto the back of Ben’s hand, “Or ‘soft.’” He lightly caressed along the scars on the back of Shepard’s hand with the tip of one finger. “Got it? Good.” He kissed the pale skin and move back to Shepard’s feet.

“Soft?” Shepard asked hoarsely.

“I haven’t started yet, Ben,” Kaidan chuckled.

“Oh.”

“Here we go…”

He pricked Shepard’s sole.

“Sharp.”

He pricked the big toe on the opposite foot.

“Sharp.”

He stroked up the insole.

“…soft.”

He pricked the heel.

“Sharp.”

He tickled the same heel.

“Soft.”

He pricked the sole of the opposite foot.

“Sharp!”

He pricked a toe and it actually flinched.

“Ah, sharp!”

He smoothed over the spot with his thumb.

“S-soft.”

Kaidan trailed his fingers from heel to toe.

“Soft.”

He lightly traced the veins on top of Shepard’s foot, rubbed down the sole.

“…soft…”

He ever so gently tickled the bottom of Ben’s feet.

“Mmm. S-soft.”

Kaidan was grinning wide when Shepard opened his eyes. Shepard beamed back down at him, Kaidan practically guffawed when one of Shepard’s toes just barely wiggled under his fingers.

++

> _“You are right Kaiden!” Shepard bellowed “it’s been almost a year since we’ve been running this sheep ranch and I can’t imagine what my life would be like without the smell of fresh air and grass!”_
> 
> _He liked it when him and Kaiden could ride up to this hill while the sheep were grazing and look at the ocean far off._
> 
> _“I told you,_ mi amor _! The Reapers didn’t come anywhere close to the Falklands and now that my grandfather is getting old, I figured it was time to live a simpler life.”_
> 
> _“A better life!” Shepard cried._
> 
> _“Let’s ride down to the beach, the sheep will be alright for a half hour, the penguins will be swimming in soon!”_
> 
> _And the sheep would be okay for an hour and it was so good that he could take an break and know that everything would be fine and he could live a simpler life with the man he loved._
> 
> _So the two of them_
> 
> _The two_
> 
> _Of them_
> 
> _…_

Kaidan’s voice had been growing slurred, sitting beside Shepard’s raised bed with one arm on the sheet to brush elbows. The thin fluorescent light behind Shepard’s head made the whole room feel like twilight, and Kaidan had been awake for hours tending to Shepard, running to the Normandy, reading Shepard stories. Then, of course, there were the almost daily session with Matriarch Aethyta, attempting to sift through Kaidan’s mind to find the cure for indoctrination Leviathan had hidden there.

The gaps between sentences had grown longer. His eyelids were drooping. Shepard had stopped staring at the ceiling and had begun watching Kaidan’s face instead.

“Kaidan,” Shepard touched his hand, which seemed to momentarily rouse the weary man. “Can I see that last line? I just want to read it for myself.” He slipped the data-pad from Kaidan’s loose grip, pretended to read until Kaidan’s eyelids fell closed again.

“Sure, Shepard. Whatever you need.” The words were barely audible, murmured in a single sleepy breath.

Shepard scooted just a touch closer to the edge of the bed. He softly stroked Kaidan’s hair, and when his lover didn’t react, he pulled Kaidan’s head down to the mattress. Kaidan nuzzled Shepard’s ribs, and he was asleep.

“Shhhh,” Shepard whispered, though there was no need. Kaidan was leaned forward and crumpled on the mattress, breaths quiet, steady, and even. Shepard’s fingers were so gentle stroking his hair that he didn’t stir a bit. “You need some sleep.”

Across the room, at her desk, Miranda looked up from her data-pad.

“That’s why you wanted the light low?” It was as if her voice was unaccustomed to whispering, so when she continued, it was in her full voice. “Always with a battle plan, Shepard.”

“Fighting sleep deprivation,” Shepard said wistfully. He kept his eyes on the man sleeping at his side, even though their voices didn’t seem to rouse him.

“Should I go?”

“No, you do what you need to do.” Shepard swallowed, “The sooner I can get back on my feet…”

“’The sooner you get on your feet…’” she cocked her head to the side, “What?”

“I… I don’t know. But it’s a goal. An objective.”

“Is that you or the indoctrination talking?” She asked the question delicately, but Shepard merely nodded.

“Concentrating keeps the feeling down.” He bowed his head towards Kaidan’s sleeping form. “Talking to him keeps the feeling down.”

“I’m glad.” She idly tapped at her data-pad, incidental entries. “He’s very devoted to you, Shepard. Honestly, there couldn’t be anything better for your treatment.”

“Is that right?”

“Your lungs haven’t collapsed since he’s been here…”

“I guess there’s that.”

“Are you going to tell him about the complications while he was gone?”

“No,” Shepard said, barely more than a whisper. “He has enough to worry about. He’s got duties.”

“You’re making me look bad, Shepard,” she tried, carefully. “I promised him I’d have you patched up by the time he came back from dealing with Leviathan.”

“I know you tried hard.” Shepard sounded weary.

“And have you talked about Despoina yet?”

“No. We haven’t. It hasn’t been the right time.”

Miranda set down here data-pad, actually allowed herself to kick back on the desk, unzipping the collar of her jumpsuit. She gathered her hair behind her head in one fist and twisted it into a high bun, held with an elastic band.

“I know what it’s like to keep things to yourself,” she said, momentarily absorbed by noticing a speck of dirt on her boot. “To wait for the right time. You don’t have to explain it to me.”

“Thank you, Miranda.” He smiled back down at Kaidan, “One of the first times we were together, just after we finally told each other how we felt, he had a migraine. Laid in my bed. I couldn’t help him, there was nothing I could do. I felt powerless, then. I thought I had really learned what it was to be helpless, in that moment: he taught me that. Being in… _loving_ him taught me that.”

“L2 migraines…” Miranda bit her lip. “I hear they’re excruciating.”

“They are. I laid there next to him, just talking to him. I still don’t know how much he heard. I’ve waited to tell him a lot of things. Our whole relationship has been waiting for the right time, the wrong time.” He let his hand linger on the heat rising up from the nape of Kaidan’s neck, fingers softly massaging the soft hairs he usually kept closely cropped.

“Shepard,” Miranda had crossed her arms across her chest, uneasily shifting in her chair. “I’m not sure I’m the person to be giving advice on this. Or the person to commiserate at all, really.”

“I thought I knew what it was like to be powerless then. Every time I’ve felt like I didn’t know what to do, or didn’t _need_ to _do_ anything, I’ve talked to Kaidan, whether he knew it or not. It’s confusing that those are the same feeling. I didn’t know what to do when he was fighting for his life in the hospital, I didn’t know what to do when Kai Leng escaped with the Prothean VI. I didn’t feel like I needed to _do_ anything lying in bed with him in our apartment. Once I… I pulled the trigger on the Crucible…. When I was ready to die, when there was nothing more to _do._ I felt the same every time: driftless. Like the future was a real thing.”

“That frightens you?”

“Not frightens, no. But sometimes the future seems bitter, and sometimes it seems perfect, and I’m always rushing to it. I need an objective, I need an anchor.” His fingertips played down Kaidan’s back, “The future’s going to find me, no matter what. I won’t fight it, but I need to wait for it. Need someone to cling to when I’m adrift.”

“Kaidan.”

“Kaidan,” Shepard nodded. The sound of his name made Kaidan murmur inaudibly into the warm blanket pressed to his face, and Shepard almost laughed. “I need someone who knows the way there.”

“I think you chose well.”

“I had my chance to make the future, on the Citadel,” he said, voice softer now. “The kind of power I had… no one should have that kind of power. It’s something I’ve said before—to Ashley, the Illusive Man. I thought I knew what it was like to hold too much power in my hands: the fate of species, galactic government, the lives of my crew, the Collector Base. But I had no idea at all. That’s how the Reapers… how the Catalyst… the indoctrination,” he cleared his throat, “I had all the power in the world, and I could still feel the future. All of them. Because I was powerless, too. I had to act, no one else could. The decision was too big. Kaidan should have been on that station, not me. The galaxy needed somebody who stargazes, and they got me.”

“And you feel ‘powerless’ now?” She had leaned forward in her chair, head on her hands.

“Sometimes I think ‘yes’, sometimes I think ‘no.’” He laid his head back on the pillows. “I don’t know. I guess that’s another kind of powerlessness. But Kaidan has plans for us… no. That’s not right. _We_ made plans together. I need to be the man that can be with him. But meanwhile, he’s got work to do, and I can’t stand in the way of that. Service is important to Kaidan, and if I can’t serve anymore…”

He didn’t finish, letting his eyes close, fingers still gently stroking the back of Kaidan’s neck. Hardcoding. He blinked his eyes open a moment later when Miranda laid a hand on his shoulder. She had everything she needed from her desk in hand, and there was no smile in her eyes when she spoke.

“The universe relied on you for a reason, Shepard. It’s important that you realize that, for all of us, and also for you. That doesn’t mean Kaidan loves you for the same reason. And it doesn’t make either of them wrong.” She dimmed the lights behind Shepard’s bed, and managed a smile when she turned back. “Get some sleep, now. I’ll leave the two of you be.”

++

> _When Shepard woke up in the hospital, his jaw hurt, his legs ached, and the doctors were calling him ‘Shepard’. They told him this was his name._
> 
> _He had done something important, that’s what they all told him. It didn’t see like_ anybody _could talk to him without mentioning what a hero this ‘Shepard’ person was that he was supposed to be._
> 
> _Everyone except the raven-haired man with the beautiful face and the kind smile…_
> 
> _He stood outside most of the time and watched Shepard through the window of the hospital room. All the doctors seemed to talk to him the moment they left Shepard’s room. Maybe he was Shepard’s boss? Shepard could_ certainly _imagine having a very unprofessional crush on the man. But no, apparently Shepard was some kind of soldier._
> 
> _The man’s name was Major Alenko. Shepard asked the doctors if a ‘major’ was a higher rank than a ‘commander’, and then he figured that the kindly smiling man must be his superior officer, maybe the leader of his unit._
> 
> _The man insisted that he be called ‘Kaidan’, though, and he only ever wanted to know what Shepard was feeling, how he was doing. Shepard thought he should be embarrassed that he was supposed to be a soldier but could never remember what he’d been like, but he never was. He_ did _blush just about every time ‘Kaidan’ shook his hand, he tried to hold on as long as possible._
> 
> _Major Alenko always seemed a little sad when he talked to Shepard. It must have been because Shepard had been a pretty good soldier, and now he was just… a nobody. He didn’t know where he came from, or what he had done (nobody would tell him) but when Major Alenko was around, it was just about the only thing he wanted to concentrate on…_

++

“Okay Shepard, one more time,” Kaidan said, pressing the heel of his hand into the ball of Shepard’s foot.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s do it.”

Kaidan pushed against the top of Shepard’s foot, and Shepard scrunched up his face in concentration to resist the push. The exercise itself wasn’t necessarily tiring, but using his muscles—stretching them to exhaustion with the pull-up bar above his bed and the slow but steady work on his legs—seemed to make the mental effects of his faulty indoctrination even worse. He grew more wide-eyed and rattled the more sweat was beading on his brow.

But Kaidan had been pushing this all morning, and for the last few weeks in fact. Though it was all at Shepard’s insistence when he was in his more lucid moments, Kaidan still left for his duty reports each day with sagging shoulders. By the time he returned to the Normandy each night he was exhausted.

“Good,” he declared, now took the top of Shepard’s foot and pulled down. Shepard grit his teeth again and resisted. “There, done.”

Shepard huffed and let his head fall back on the pillow, bleary eyed and staring up at the pull-up bar that hung above him night and day now. Kaidan let his hand run all the way up Shepard’s body, raking through Shepard’s sweaty hair to lay a kiss on his lips.

“I’m proud of you.”

Shepard, out of breath, merely nodded. His eyes slammed shut a moment later, head jerked to the side.

“It’ll be alright, Ben,” Kaidan dragged his chair up to the bed with a toe and sat down, clasping Shepard’s hand. “It’ll get better soon. And… I swear we’ll get this cure out of my head soon. Just… I need a couple more sessions with Aethyta.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Shepard managed, staring into the corner of the room as if he expected someone to be there. “I know. Just let me get my heartrate slowed down a little then… then you can get back to the Normandy. Can you… can you just stay another minute?”

“Of course, Ben. I’m staying the night, I’m not leaving your side.”

“Wh-what?” Shepard’s gaze whipped back to Kaidan’s face.

“Things are squared away on the Normandy. _I’m_ squared away. I’m not leaving again.”

“You… can’t do that…” Shepard replied.

“Sure I can,” Kaidan’s smile was unconvincing. “Amazing what, uh. What they’ll do for you when you save the galaxy a few times.”

Shepard opened his mouth as if to say more, but a moment later narrowed his eyes, unfocused. His grip on Kaidan’s hand loosened. As if he could _almost_ hear the voices that were supposed to be in his head.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Kaidan lightly slapped Shepard’s face. “Come back to me, Ben. C-c’mon.”

“Shhh, I just…”

“Just listen to my voice.” He raised his voice, “Hey! Shepard? _Commander_!”

Ben turned to face him, staring through him.

“Shepard Commander?”

“C’mon Ben,” he reached up to adjust one of the sedatives. “Just… just think of… We’re gonna… remember… dammit,” he choked.

Shepard convulsed then, his strangled cry forcibly turned into a mirthless laugh.

“Okay, okay Kaidan. D-don’t worry. I’m going to… that wasn’t so bad. Ugh.” He grabbed hold of the bar above his head and pulled himself upright, head still unbalanced on his neck.

“Hey, welcome back.” Kaidan swallowed, smiled.

“Get’s… a little… less intense… every day.” Shepard’s hand still shook in Kaidan’s.

“That didn’t seem less intense, Shepard.” Kaidan’s brow furrowed.

“Ummm… maybe… maybe not… but…”

“Don’t worry, Shepard. I’ll get you help. I promise I will.”

“I’ll keep working. B-but… don’t worry about me. You’ve got things to do, I know.”

“I don’t, Ben,” Kaidan insisted. “I don’t. Just you. I’ve got a change of clothes and everything, gonna sleep on the floor, Lakely’s bringing me a blanket and everything.”

Shepard turned away.

“Ben, what’s the matter?” Kaidan squeezed his hand.

“The world’s still a mess, Kaidan… and the Council…” He looked at Kaidan, but could only meet his eye for a moment. “They need you.”

“ _You_ need me.”

“You’re an Alliance officer,” Ben grimaced. “You’re a Spectre, you’ve got a duty. You can’t just… you _have_ to go.”

“Ben,” Kaidan leaned back, letting Shepard’s hand fall to the blanket. “I’m staying with you, _alright_?”

“I know what it’s like, Kaidan,” Ben said, seriously, “I know you feel like you need to stay here with me, but… You need your duty, Kaidan, I know you. And… and I know they need you even more.”

“Ben,” Kaidan grit his teeth, “Don’t… do this thing where you… I dunno. Where you feel guilty about being stuck in this hospital and you’re trying to live vicariously, alright? Just… _don’t_ ”

“Dammit, Kaidan!” Shepard’s head whapped back on his pillow. “I… _You_ were the one that warned me about cutting corners and…”

“I can’t believe this.” Kaidan turned away from the bed, walked halfway to Miranda’s empty desk before he allowed himself to breathe. “I _wish_ there were some way I could _convince_ you that you’re done, Shepard! You don’t need to worry about this galaxy anymore. You did your part. More than anyone could ask for.”

“It’s not like that, Kaidan.”

“Then _what?_ ” Kaidan whipped around.

Shepard stared, finally letting out the breath he’d been holding.

“You saw what happened. On the Crucible?”

“…I saw, yeah. I lived it, Ben. I know… what you felt, alright?”

“But you see it differently. You’re ‘you’, of course you see it differently.”

“What’s this about, Shepard?” Kaidan walked back to the bed, intertwined their fingers again.

“I can’t be the cause of you leaving the service. And I… I don’t want you to feel like this. Like I feel. Knowing that the ‘right choice’ got clouded by… what you wanted.”

Kaidan scoffed. Took a moment to gather his thoughts. There was frost in his soft tone when he spoke again.

“Which one is it, Shepard? Am I leaving the service because of _you_ , or because I’m—what?—emotionally compromised?”

“I love you. I _love_ you,” Ben said. “You’re the only thing that’s made my life feel like something. And I believe you love me, too. So. I made a choice on the Crucible, and I don’t know if it was the right way to go. I love you so much, it made me selfish. You’re better than me, Kaidan. It should have been you up there. But I don’t want to make your decision harder.”

He let his eyes close, his body slackened. He turned his face away. Still gripping his hand, Kaidan let his back slump against the wall.

“I’m not who you think I am, Shepard. And I think I understand better than you think—not because of the Echo Shard—but…. Well. I’m not ready to talk about it right now. I’ve made up my mind, Ben. Until you’re better, I’m staying by your side unless you send me away.”

“ _Never_.” Ben’s head whipped back around, a scowl on his face, orange scars burning. “I will _never_ send you away! _Never._ ”

Kaidan’s smile barely reached his eyes.

“Good. You’d have to make a damn convincing argument, even if you tried.” He allowed himself to be pulled flush with the mattress when Shepard snaked an arm behind the small of his back, tugged himself up to press his face into Kaidan’s shirt. “I’m not taking a break because of you, Ben. I’m doing it because you need help, right now. _You_ are not your problems. And… I don’t know what the galaxy needs right now. But I need you. I’m not loving you as a favor to anyone but myself. The rest… can wait.”

“We need to talk about it,” Shepard’s voice was muffled, pressed tight into Kaidan’s belly.

“Please, not today?” Kaidan’s voice quivered.

“Yeah,” Shepard said at last. He let himself be lowered back to the bed, but clasped Kaidan tight. “Just kiss me, then.”

++

> _Kaidan’s heart-rate quickened with the ping of the scanner on his omni-tool._
> 
> _Shepard was close. His knees shook and he practically tripped atop the pile of rubble. Shepard was under this, he had to be, under this great pile of smoldering conduit and shattered material._
> 
> _“Shepard!” He called. There was no response, of course. But then, as he mounted slipped and tumbled a little way down the rubble of the far-side of the pile, his omni-tool returned vital signs. Faint. But alive. Shepard._
> 
> _He pulled from deep inside himself and heaved his biotics against the heaviest pieces obstructing him. One by one, the blocks of rubble lifted up and aside, and the pinging from his omni-tool got louder. But it wasn’t until he saw a hand emerge from the detritus that he remembered to signal for the paramedic teams._
> 
> _“I’ve found him… someone. It’s him!”_
> 
> _“ETA 10 minutes, sir!”_
> 
> _Kaidan rushed forward and fell to his knees and began clawing at the smaller pieces with his hands. Shepard’s face, bloody and scratched and dusty, emerged from the mess._
> 
> _“K-Kaidan?” Shepard sputtered, “…can’t be you.”_
> 
> _Kaidan stopped himself from pulling the man out of the rubble all at once, and instead fumbled for his medi-gel and medkit._
> 
> _“Don’t talk, Benny. It’s me. Just stay still! I’m going to get you out of here.”_
> 
> _“Kaidan?” Shepard said again, as if noticing him for the first time. “It is you.”_
> 
> _“Yeah, it’s me, Benny.” Kaidan batted at his wet eyes with the back of an armored glove and began scanning Shepard with his medical interface._
> 
> _“I knew you’d find me…” Shepard said gently, closing his eyes._
> 
> _“Well… you owe me a dance, remember?” Kaidan tried to chuckle. The medi-gel distribution system in Shepard’s armor was shot, he’d have to apply it manually. It looked like Shepard’s body was pretty badly beaten, but it wasn’t as if the rubble were holding together an unstable injury._
> 
> _“Another on already, Kaid?” Shepard laughed. “You miss my two left feet that much?”_
> 
> _“I missed all of you, Benny.” Kaidan cleared the rubble away, exposed himself to the full sight of Shepard’s battered body. “Besides, I still need to teach you to lead on the dancefloor. You’re a stubborn learner.”_
> 
> _“…guess you must be a glutton for punishment,” Shepard said, and Kaidan thought his voice sounded resigned, so unlike the Benny he had come to know. Shepard looked down at his own broken body._
> 
> _“I’m very much in love.”_
> 
> _“Did you know, I was thinking about that?” Shepard swallowed the pain-killer Kaidan gave him and Kaidan began to apply medi-gel, perform his deep scans. “Feels like I’ve been lying here forever, but I kept hearing music, like what we were dancing to that one time. Kept thinking about your hand in mine… your hand on my waist.”_
> 
> _“Don’t you worry, Benny,” Kaidan beamed down at him. It took all his control not to just lay down there in the soot and rubble with Benny and hold him close. But the scans were complete, and it looked like it’d be safer to move Shepard than to leave him near all this unstable rubble. “We’ll be dancing cheek to cheek, soon.”_
> 
> _“You promise?” Benny grinned._
> 
> _“Yeah, I promise.”_
> 
> _He stooped, pulled on his biotics just a bit, and lifted Shepard up in his arms. As the paramedics called out from the other side of the pile, he stooped to kiss—_

“What…. Umm,” Nurse Nathan Lakely cleared his throat as he walked into the room, eyes wide. “What are you reading, Major?”

Kaidan laughed, trading covert looks with Shepard.

“Just a little story we found on the extranet, Lakely, c’mon in.”

He stood up, moved his chair aside to let the nurse in to run his usual checks on Shepard’s monitors and vitals.

“Was that, uh, a story about _you_ , Commander?” He asked, still moving like a robot.

“Maybe so,” Shepard laughed.

“How’s he doing, Lakely?” Kaidan yawned, leaning on Miranda’s desk. He winked at Ben across the room when they met eyes.

“Oh, uh, still… still as good as ever, Major.” Lakely seemed to shake himself out of his daze, “Well, I mean, getting better! Vitals. Um, vitals are looking good.”

Kaidan set his data-pad full of stories down and picked up another on Miranda’s desk.

“That’s good,” he remarked, scrolling through. “I guess that means I can tell Miranda the new adjustments to the Supervisory Processor were a success. Damn, I owe her a drink.”

“You were _betting_ on whether my lungs would crash again,” Shepard cried from the bed. Lakely put a hand on his chest, then seemed to flinch back when he realized what he’d done.

“S-sorry, Commander. Please lie still, I need you to not move while I measure your scars.” His omni-tool was the same shade as the scars in Shepard’s face, and he slowly ran it from forehead to chin and back again.

“No! No we weren’t,” Kaidan laughed. “Miranda argued that recoding the Supervisory subroutines through the Hierarchical VI Chain would result in greater lung efficiency—at least 4%. I didn’t think it would be worth the extra hours it took to write the code, thought it’d be a .5% at most. Guess I’ve got even more to learn that I thought I did.”

Lakely turned Shepard’s head to one side, scanned down the scars there.

“You’ve been working on the VI coding, Major?”

“Hm?” Kaidan looked up from the data-pad, “Oh, yeah, I have. I figure I’m spending plenty of time here, and baths and conversation can only take up so much time. Might as well learn how my boyfriend ticks on the inside.” He gave Shepard a huge grin, and Shepard’s own grin ruined Lakely’s fourth scan—or perhaps it was the goofy smile on Lakely’s face that caused the nurse to fumble the measurement.

“I… imagine that’s quite a lot of work, M-major,” Lakely couldn’t stop smiling.

“For sure,” Kaidan winked at Shepard again when they met eyes. “Miranda’s a genius, and the code is nuts. But I guess a lot of Shepard’s systems have been coming back online without VI assistance. We’ve been spending as much time downgrading the systems to keep up with the regeneration.”

“And Ms. Lawson,” Lakely swallowed, looked around the room. “She’s not… hiding somewhere, is she?”

“Meeting with Doctor Raj; you’re good, Lakely,” Kaidan chuckled.

Lakely utterly failed to hide how relieved he was.

“Tell me about the scars.” Shepard said, once the scan were done.

“Hmm,” Nathan, chewed on his tongue for a moment. “Scan indicates… a 2% decrease!”

The three men cheered, the effort sending Shepard into a coughing fit. It had become a little tradition: once a week Lakely would report on whether Shepard’s facial scars had decreased in size, increased, or stayed the same. As part of his duties, he took the scans every day, but Kaidan had noticed that the tiny increases and decreases every day as Shepard had a good or bad day ultimately discouraged Ben. Overall, though, the scars were healing, so he suggested they only report once a week for morale.

“Thanks, Lakely,” Kaidan said, clapping the beaming nurse on the shoulder.

“Of course Major! Commander!” He finished a note on his omni-tool and headed for the door. “Salisbury steak for dinner tonight, Commander!”

“’Steak,’ huh,” Kaidan grumbled under his breath, moving his chair back to Ben’s bed.

Shepard watched Lakely leave, then turned back to Kaidan, the smile on his face just a little more tired than he had allowed his nurse to see.

“Staying for dinner?”

“I need to meet Matriarch Aethyta,” Kaidan sighed, sat back down. Shepard’s hand opened for his before he even reached for it. “Steve’s flying me up to Citadel in an hour. Picking me up on the roof, though. But how are you doing?”

Shepard rolled his eyes, shrugged: non-committal.

“Been alright today. Feel like I should be somewhere… like something’s supposed to have… called for me, or something.”

Kaidan listened seriously, brow furrowing and unfurrowing as his brave-face wavered. He stroked his index finger down his own chin, clean-shaven but for a day’s stubble.

“We’ll figure this out, Ben. Aethyta thinks we’re close. And Chakwas has convinced a whole team at Huerta to work on it…”

“Shh,” Shepard pushed down on one leg and rolled himself onto his side, drawing Kaidan’s hand up to his lips, curling around the shadow of Kaidan the fluorescents cast on the bed. “I said it was a good day. I can handle it.”

There was a knock on the door, and Kaidan was running his fingers through Ben’s hair when he called:

“Come in.”

The door slid open up, and Admiral Hackett, in full uniform, stepped into the room. He took in the room in a single glance. He looked to Shepard on the bed, Kaidan attending him.

“Oh.” His eyebrows barely rose.

“Admiral Hackett.” Kaidan barely took his eyes off Shepard, tightening his grip on Ben’s fingers. “Welcome.”

“Major Alenko, Commander Shepard.”

Shepard kissed Kaidan’s knuckles on last time, began adjusting his bed to bring him more upright before he even turned over.

“Admiral Hackett, glad you could make it, please come in.”

“Thank you,” Hackett stepped further into the room watching Kaidan as he approached. “You’re looking good, Commander.”

“Keeping intact, sir.” Shepard pulled himself further up by the bar above his head, letting Kaidan settle a pillow behind his back.

“Major,” Hackett cleared his throat. “Would you mind if I have a few moments with Shepard?”

Kaidan looked for a long moment before turning to Shepard. Ben gave him an almost imperceptible nod. He pulled Shepard’s glass of water closer on the bed-side table, hauled his chair around to Hackett’s side of the bed before silently slipping out of the room. Ben only smiled.

“What can I do for you, sir?”

Hackett removed his hat, the thin hairs underneath flying free in the static of the dry room. He smoothed a hand over them as he took a seat.

“I’m sorry this is the first I’ve been to see you, Shepard,” he sighed. “Last time I was in this room, you were practically dead and your face was split open like a geode.”

“I understand, Admiral,” Shepard nodded. “There’s been plenty to do.”

“It’s been a long time since you’ve been awake, don’t think I don’t know it.”  The chair groaned when Hackett leaned back. “Not to mention Miranda Lawson’s done a hell of a job keeping prying eyes out of the hospital. That woman’s got contacts I’d kill for. Finally convinced her I was making a social visit, not an official Alliance debriefing.”

“But you’ll be getting that debriefing in anyhow, won’t you, sir?” Shepard smiled mirthlessly.

“Certainly not an official one,” he crossed one leg over the other. “But it’s important to get the story from you, Shepard, and rumors are spreading. I’ll be telling the official Alliance position, and the Council is never forthcoming about its Spectres. For as long as that lasts.”

“I’ve turned in my report.”

“And I’ve read it,” Hackett nodded. “Hmm. I want to know how you’re doing, too, Shepard. You’ve been through hell. Humanity owes you a debt.”

“I have ups and downs. Every day has a little good and a little bad,” Shepard answered, voice a little thin.

“And the indoctrination?”

“No better.”

“Tell me more.”

“Not much more to tell, sir. Feels like I’m waiting for orders that aren’t coming. It’s hard to keep in mind who I’m supposed to be.”

“…god, Shepard.”

“I went into more detail in my report.”

“I know,” Hackett turned his eyes to the floor. “Monstrous things, what the Reapers did. To know they did it to… to a friend. Hearing it about it in person. That’s another thing. I’m sorry, Shepard. Sorry for everything.”

“We’ve all lost plenty. We all fought for this.” Shepard let his shoulder relax just a little.

“Plenty of heroes. That’s for sure. Not enough medals to pin on all the chests that deserve them. Not enough of those heroes left. You were with David at the end,” Hackett ran his thumb over the rough hairs on the back of his hand. “Doesn’t seem right that a man like that doesn’t get a burial—turned into bio-sludge by… by those creatures.” He shook his head.

“…none of us would be here if it wasn’t for Anderson,” Shepard admitted. “No one’s going to forget that.”

“We’ll see to that. But I know David well enough—he always said his greatest accomplishment was backing you, son. Same goes for me. None of us are going to forget that either.”

Shepard only looked on, and Hackett continued.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened up there…”

Shepard told the details in a hollow monotone, jaw locked down and gaze steady. As with his report, he didn’t mention the heat of Harbinger’s blast, or the look in Kaidan’s eyes as he said goodbye, or the way he felt relieved to see Anderson resting peacefully—dead with a smile on his lips—after watching his mentor seized and contorted in agony from the Illusive Man’s control. He talked about the indoctrination, but didn’t mention the whispering spider and the way it crawled across the back of his awareness as he fought not to murder his oldest friend, or the way the Child’s voice echoed in places in the back of his mind he didn’t believe he possessed, or the way his memories of Kaidan were bronzed over like the beautiful shine left at the bottom of the goblet of his life. He grew hoarse when he spoke about the final choice—to control the Reapers for the good of everyone, to destroy them and all synthetic life, or to merge the two together—but he didn’t mention how he had made a bee-line for the green growing column which would have evolved all sentient life with the catalyst of his own body, he didn’t mention the way his legs wobbled as he ascended the ramp to his fatal choice, or the way he prayed for Kaidan’s voice in his mind to take his hand and guide his gun.

The way the Child flashed out of existence. The way the ancient monsters in space went limp. Gritting his teeth imagining EDI snuffing from the universe as suddenly. Keeping his eyes open against the flash of the explosion.

None of that had been in the report, and none of it was in his recounting to Hackett. Only in the Echo Shard.

“Shepard,” Hackett said, jaw locked tight when Shepard had finished. “I can’t even imagine. _Thank you_.”

“For?”

“For saving us all.”

“I _didn’t_ save us all,” Shepard insisted. “I said so in my report.”

“Fighting through indoctrination to pull the trigger, to end this nightmare,” Hackett shook his head slowly. “It’s a staggering commitment.”

“…wh-what?”

“You did what needed to be done against impossible odds.”

“’Fighting through indoctrination’ has nothing to do with it.” He winced against the pressure on his hip, “I had the option to—“

“Synthetisize, I know.” He leaned in, “Shepard, did you ever think that might be a trick?”

Shepard blinked.

“No. I never have. And it wasn’t a trick, Admiral. It was a _choice_.”

Hackett frowned. Sighed.

“I’m trying hard to see it from your perspective, here, Commander. We barely know how the Crucible worked as it stands. To imagine that that technology had the power to do what you say is something even our experts can’t get their heads around. And…”

“And it would mean I committed genocide,” Shepard insisted. “Against the geth. Our allies. And that doesn’t make the victory look as clean, does it? Or doesn’t anyone care about them?”

“It isn’t like that. It’s going to be a long time before people start asking questions about how you did what you did up there. The simple answer is you saved everybody. The _truth_ is that this war was terrible, sacrifices were made, and—together—we won the day.” He stood carefully: old joints. “To complicate the narrative, especially if word gets out that you were under the influence of Reaper indoctrination as well as Cerberus control? I just don’t know, Shepard. I’d give my arm if we didn’t have to complicate that narrative.”

“It’s the truth, _sir._ ”

“…I’ll try to see it that way. I really will. I’m sorry. I know you’d love some peace about this. State you’re in right now, I think you’re almost hoping to be brought in at a war crimes tribunal. As if a Spectre could even be held accountable to something like that. But I can’t in good conscience petition the Council to sanction you. Not knowing what you’ve done for the people of this galaxy.

“It’s a heavy choice you had to make, Commander. Shepard. If what you say really is true, I don’t envy you. But this is my choice, and it’s not easy for me. I don’t know what that world looks like—with the Reapers as allies, or with circuits running through my skin—but I know that in _this_ world, the one you made possible, there’s a better chance for lasting peace than anyone has ever had any right to hope for.”

“…but the _way_ we got here,” he said, dangerous and low. “Shouldn’t people know?”

“You’re a Spectre, Commander. You don’t answer to me. And you’re a hero. We’re not going to try to bury you if you go public with any of this. Not as long as I’m alive. As if we could.” Hackett put a strong hand on Shepard’s shoulder, “Maybe the history books will talk about that choice, Shepard—all the things that might have been. Maybe when you’re like Ulysses and all of us are just characters in your story—for all I know, maybe we’ll have Reaper servants and glowing eyes by then, if the Crucible is right—then it’ll be time to talk about that choice. But no matter what, kids are going to learn you name as a hero.” He placed his cap back on his head. “We’ve proven we can do it together. We’re going to move slower than we would have if we let the Crucible remake us. But we’re going forward, and right now, people don’t need to know what might have been.”

Shepard looked away. Breathed in. Breathed out. Nodded gently.

“I suppose it’s my weight to bear, anyhow…”

“Not alone though, I think?” Hackett gestured toward the door. “I’ll send Major Alenko back in as I go.”

Shepard huffed a laugh.

“He’s gone up to the Citadel by now.”

Hackett nodded, folded his hands, looked as if he might say more, finally sighing:

“We’ll talk again soon,” he said reverently. “It’s been an honor, Commander Shepard.”

He was gone a moment later. Shepard lay in the silence, the click of hospital monitors and the hum of the lights contrapuntal and droning beneath his uneven breaths. It was a few minutes later when the door opened again.

“Hey, Shepard,” Kaidan smiled, hurrying over to the bedside.

“K-Kaidan!” Ben reached out for him when he came near.

“Called Steve and Aethyta while you were talking with Hackett,” he all but drew Shepard into his arms. “Figured this wasn’t the night to take the long-view on things.”

They sputtered together with bursts of laughter, tears in their eyes. They fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> What Kaidan has been up to with Matriarch Aethyta.


	61. The Difference between the Talent and the Yoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan and Matriarch Aethyta look for a cure, Shepard has sort of found his own.

Shepard was walking again.

Never without the assistance of some rails to stabilize him, never without a team of physical therapists on hand, never for more than a few steps at a time and an hour a day.

But he was walking.

Unless he was meeting with Matriarch Aethyta, Kaidan was always on hand as well. And good thing, too. The more exertion Shepard put his body through, the more his fits of madness from the redundant indoctrination in his mind tortured him. The therapists would leave the room to let Shepard get changed out of his sweaty clothes, and he would instead collapse into Kaidan’s chest, practically screaming about the way the lofty silence in his head was driving him insane—how he could feel better if he could just hear _one_ voice, Reaper or Illusive Man, _anything_ , he could have some relief. Sometimes, when Kaidan’s migraines would peak, they would lie together on the mats of the PT room, locked together. Those were bad days.

 “It’s not all bad, at least,” Shepard smiled, adjusting the cheap sunglasses the nurse had given him before Kaidan pushed his wheelchair out of the hospital and into the garden. “Helps me appreciate the good days, I guess.”

Kaidan’s own smile was weary, but as he pushed Ben out into the sunshine, the lines around his eyes seemed to smooth out. Today was one of the good days.

“Heh, always seeing that silver lining, eh, Shepard?”

Shepard seemed to shrink deeper into his thick, beige robe: he was still almost always cold.

“Got to trust the experts,” he tipped his head back to grin up at Kaidan. “I’ve got plenty of doctors telling me I’ve got permission to be optimistic. I’ve got you. What more do I need.”

“God, Ben,” Kaidan rolled his eyes, chuckled, “Gimme a second or two to catch up with this much optimism, okay?”

“Alright, alright. Still. I… really live for the times like this, where I don’t feel those thoughts in my head. And as long as I don’t think about it too much… I don’t even feel guilty right now. But maybe I should.”

“Don’t go down _that_ road,” Kaidan leveraged the wheelchair up onto one of the smoother garden paths. “We’re having a good day. It’ll last as long as it can, okay?” Kaidan swallowed hard.

Shepard only responded by pulling his hands inside the sleeves of his robe.

The hospital garden wasn’t much to look at. Like the rest of London, it had been devastated by the Reaper occupation even before London became ground zero in the final battle for Earth. No one had tended the flowerbeds since before the invasion. The trees had mostly been leveled when a Harvester had landed in order to destroy the hospital.

Near the entrance to the hospital, an old rowan still stood undisturbed. A paper sign had been nailed to the bark:

“’They Also Serve Who Stand and Wait,’” Kaidan read.

“I asked Lakely about it,” Shepard craned his neck and so Kaidan stopped. “The Reaper landed on the east side of the campus. Finally, the Director of the Hospital surrendered the hospital to the Reapers. This is where the Cannibals stopped attacking and withdrew. It was one of the only med centers with uninterrupted power in the city, he saved everyone inside. Had to go to a Reaper camp as part of the arrangement. Came back indoctrinated.” The roots of the tree were thronged around with photographs. “…instituted a policy that gave the patients with the worst prognoses over to the Reapers. He was killed in a staff riot during the battle when he was going to give up the position of the asari artillery unit hiding in the sub-basements.”

A few other trees further east had been split in half and left to grow like that. But sure enough, between the rowan and the main hospital building, the devastation was minimal.

“Can you imagine,” Shepard mumbled. “Lakely, _our_ spooked Nurse Lakely, part of a staff riot in the middle of the battle?”

“C’mon, Shepard,” Kaidan said gently, pushing Shepard along. “We’ll take another look on the way back, there’s plenty to see.

Shepard laid his head back, squinting even beneath the sunglasses as his gaze met the blue sky.

“It’s a beautiful day.” He sighed, the smile returning to his face. “Look at that sky.”

Kaidan pushed Shepard along their path until the crater of a Reaper’s tread terminated it, then backtracked to another.

“So hopefully,” Kaidan had been rambling most of the walk. “Once I get this damn cure out of my head, the stuff you’ve been working with the shrink for will be a little more effective.”

“Yeah.” Shepard yawned. “I’m sure it will.”

There was a bench nearby, and Kaidan pulled Shepard up and locked the wheels in place. Shepard gestured that he wanted to get up, and Kaidan grudgingly helped him out of the chair and over the two steps it took to get to the bench, slippers scuffing the pavement.

“You warm enough?” Kaidan asked when Shepard tucked under his arm and leaned his body against Kaidan’s.

“Mmm, I will be soon. The sun feels nice.”

“Yeah,” Kaidan closed his eyes, turned his face up into the sunlight. “Yeah… it uh… it really does.”

“I heard a lot of stories about this hospital, while you were handling Leviathan,” Shepard said after a long moment.

“…oh?”

“You sound surprised,” Ben sniffed, “You know me. Can’t help but stick my nose in everyone’s business.”

“Just haven’t talked about that very much,” Kaidan actually laughed. “I just don’t wanna jinx story time.”

“I wanted to wait to try to talk about all that with you, wanted to wait to see… if I’d shake this indoctrination. But—“

“—I _swear_ to you, Ben, I will—“

“—shhh.” Shepard turned his face up, lips pressed to Kaidan’s cheek, he gently shushed him. “I could wait, but I want to talk to you, more.”

“Okay, Ben.” Kaidan smiled, held Shepard tighter.

“Honestly not that much to talk about. What did you call it? The ‘3 questions and run’ play? ‘I should go?” He laughed himself into a sputtering cough. “I’ll get it out of my system… but you’re right, maybe we should finish this walk, first, huh?”

He pulled the sunglasses away from his face but Kaidan grabbed his hand and slid them back on.

“C’mon, Shepard! Miranda thinks your eyes are going to need a couple days to be strong enough for sunlight.”

“Kaidan,” Ben smirked, eyebrows raising up from beneath the shades, pushing his scars into the furrows in his brow. “ _Kaidan_. It’ll be okay, alright?”

Kaidan tried to peer through the dark glasses and exhaled a long sigh. Finally, he removed Shepard’s glasses himself, mirrored Ben’s smile.

“…you have gorgeous eyes, Ben.”

“Only in the right light,” Shepard grinned. He leaned in for a kiss.

++

Kaidan had been loath to use his Spectre authority for anything so lazy, but demanding permission to dock at a Presidium bay and fly the Kodiak through the Presidium itself to Matriarch Aethyta’s meant he could spend an extra hour or two with Shepard he would’ve lost to transit time. It also meant Steve was much more enthusiastic about delivering him to his appointments—the construction inside the Citadel was of a scale it was hard to imagine, and flying a shuttle through the thick of it gave Cortez something to focus on now that he wasn’t making combat drops.

“Matriarch Aethyta,” Kaidan pushed through to the breakroom behind Aethyta’s restaurant. “Sorry I’m late, got held up, planetside.”

“No worries, kid,” Aethyta was already lounging back in a chair that looked like it was probably designed more for a Krogan, her lithe body sprawled over the arm rests. “Not like I’m in the final stage of my life or anything.”

“Nah, you don’t look a day over 325.”

“Hitting me on me while we’re trying to save your bondmate’s brain,” she retorted dryly, “You’re a kinky thing, aren’t ya?”

“Now you see why Shepard likes me,” Kaidan huffed, plopping down in a chair across from the matriarch before dragging it screeching across the floor so they were practically facing one another.

“You look like hell today,” she turned to sit in the chair conventionally, stretched her back. “Shepard’s not doing so good, huh?”

“No. He still sleeps most of the day. But… I don’t know. Maybe next week some time we’ll be able to get some feeling in his legs.”

“You sure you wanna do this today, kid?”

“Yeah. Shepard needs help, and I’ve got the answer in my head, I just can’t get it out.” Kaidan blinked, “Does… does it hurt the process if I’m tired, or?”

“Define ‘hurt.’” Aethyta cracked her knuckles. “If you’re sick of all the spiritual crap, I can just grab your brain by the balls.”

“Liara told me that the two people need to be willing, in sync?” Kaidan said, blearily.

“She’s young,” Aethyta made a throaty chuckle from deep in her chest. “Asari like to be mysterious, plunging necklines aside. There’s nothing magical about what we do, our brains are set up for it. Mate with any species, take a swim in some other species brain: is what it is.”

“So the whole… ‘embrace eternity’ thing?”

Aethyta crowed with laughter, and when she looked at Kaidan again, her eyes were pitch black.

“Show me yer brain, kid!”

> _Kaidan stumbled forward with a groan in a dark place. Aethyta was at his side, peering off into a deeper darkness to their left._
> 
> _“I… ouch,” he grumbled._
> 
> _“Told ya.” She smirked wickedly._
> 
> _“Feels like getting hit by a truck.”_
> 
> _“Figured the slow and steady route wasn’t working for you, seemed like you needed a kick in the quad.”_
> 
> _“Still—“_
> 
> _“Quiet now, kid. Mama’s got work to do.”_
> 
> _She turned her face up, and it was as if the void above them were a blanket smothering something beneath trying to come through—like looking at a lid dancing atop a pot about to boil over. Aethyta tangled her fingers in the darkness and pulled. Kaidan’s breath hitched in his throat._
> 
> _A thin line of white light appeared, at first like a tear in the night, then like the lip of a mammoth cauldron, tipping over onto them. Stars poured out. Sparks of flaring liquid metal that hissed through the void and splashed onto the ground, threatening to bury the two of them in a cosmic flood._
> 
> _Then the matriarch twisted her hand again, and the darkness she had ensnared became like a black goblet, and she strode fearlessly to the rushing wave of stars._
> 
> _“Quiet!”_
> 
> _And the wave broke immediately, stilled to a pool that graciously flowed around her feet. She dipped her cup into the glow, carried the tiniest bit of it back to where Kaidan watched on in wonder. As soon as they had poured down from above, it was as if they drained into the floor of the darkness in a tremendous whirlpool._
> 
> _Aethyta didn’t even look back. She took the smallest sip from the cup, swished the light around her mouth, and spat out in the darkness, spraying light onto an unseen screen just before her. It looked like a night sky on an airless world, full of unblinking, nameless constellations and clouds of primordial nebulae._
> 
> _She reached out and made an ‘X’ in the pattern with one swift finger. Kaidan’s eyes rolled back into his head, he stumbled back a few steps._
> 
> _“Woops,” Aethyta frowned._
> 
> _“W-woops?” Kaidan looked down, and it was as if the two of them were standing on the lip of the great cauldron now: the boiling stars below. “I… oh shit.” The cauldron began to tip, the turbulent light racing up even as Kaidan lost his balance and nearly tumbled down._

“You got a twisted mind, kid, I’ll give you that.” Aethyta’s eyes were their own color again, and Kaidan was pale.

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“ _That_!”

“Do you know how hard it is sifting that deep in someone’s head?” Aethyta retrieved a bottle of cheap whiskey she typically brought out as their sessions were coming to an end. Usually, she would do two or three such sessions before calling it a day, though. “Whatever those big things put in your brain, they hid it good. Most experiences, memories, all that jazz—still up top where the sunlight can reach ‘em. _This_ thing? Twilight zone. Buried down with the autonomic functions, down with the genetic memories.”

“…shit.”

“You got that right, Major,” she sloshed out two perfect pours and slid a tumbler across the table to Kaidan. “Figured if I bashed my way in, I might stir something up. Found it, just can’t get near the damn thing.”

“Did… Leviathan hide it on purpose?” The sinews in his neck tightened, “Make it hard to access on purpose?”

“Who knows,” she downed her drink in one swallow, then poured another. “Might just be that sophisticated. I’ll talk to that Doctor of yours over at Huerta and get some thoughts.”

“Liara said she could tell something was there, no problem,” Kaidan frowned.

“She knows you,” Aeythta shrugged. “She knows Shepard too. Bet that helps.”

“Why would that matter? It’s _my_ head.”

“It’s _his_ cure.”

++

“I think Miranda was worried something might happen, after you left to find Leviathan.” Shepard had just finished his therapy session, and Kaidan was helping him peel off his sweat-soaked shirt on a bench beside a steaming hot-tub. “She started having tests for me every day. My eyes. My ears. Lung capacity.”

Shepard’s steps were getting a little easier—last week, after therapy, Kaidan had needed to wheel him down here and biotically lift him from the chair and onto the first step—now he was limping down the steps into the water by himself.

His naked body was still a crisscross of scars and patchwork skin, angry lines that flushed red long before they dipped below the water. Kaidan stared after, folding Shepard’s dirty socks and laying them atop the pile of other clothes.

“Keeping you busy, I suppose.” He placed Shepard’s sandals atop the steps down into the tub, then hurried over when Shepard groaned, sitting down cautiously in the water.

“I’m fine, I’m fine… just my hip,” he shooed Kaidan away. “Yeah, keeping me busy. For the first few days, I refused to do just about every test.” He hung his head.

“You’d been through a lot, Ben,” Kaidan said, easing himself down to sit cross legged on the other end of the hot tub. “You’re not beating yourself up over being depressed are you?” Then Kaidan rubbed his hands over his face, scratching at the beard growth. “…I’m sorry, that sounded… I’m an ass, I didn’t mean—“

“Kaidan,” Shepard’s smile was soft, even though one eye was clearly twitching: another invasion of the voiceless entities running around his head. “Get in here with me.”

“Patients only,” he snorted.

“C’mon,” Shepard leaned back in the water, one arm rising up to beckon Kaidan in. “You’re my therapy, Kaidan. Please?” He winced, but tried to keep his smile anyhow.

Kaidan sighed, loosened his collar. Once he had folded his clothes beside Shepard’s, he made quick work of the steps. Even so, Shepard watched his body descend, smirked when the warmth made Kaidan stretch his back, pull his chest taut against his ribs, the way he dipped down to his neck below the surface then emerged so that the dark hair trailing down his stomach was matted down.

“I can’t believe I talked you into this,” Shepard’s body was so weak, he smiled languidly and allowed himself to be kissed.

“Well,” Kaidan rubbed one hand across Shepard’s chest. “I’ve been thinking back to the first time we talked. The way I held you while you told me about Alchera, about Cerberus.”

Shepard’s brow furrowed.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. You don’t remember that?”

“I… I guess I don’t. I remember a little, but…” His head whipped to the left, wild-eyed, as if a Brute had blasted through the door. He calmed almost as quickly, though his heart continued to beat in his chest against Kaidan’s hand. “Nothing, it’s nothing. Sorry. Ummm, where was I?”

Kaidan suppressed his worried expression, sat down so Shepard could drop his head on Kaidan’s shoulder.

“When we were talking about Miranda and her tests?” He slipped an arm behind Shepard’s back. “Or when we were talking about me holding you?”

“Miranda, I guess,” Ben smiled. “What you said about me being depressed. Yeah. I’m ashamed of how I acted. I was petulant, and I made Miranda’s work a nightmare. I wish I could say I _wanted_ to cooperate with my recovery, but I didn’t.”

“How come, Ben? Huh?” He kissed Shepard’s hair, still sweaty from the therapy and the rising steam.

Shepard was quiet for a long time.

“I overheard some of what Miranda had been talking about with Doctor Raj. How he thinks I survived on will alone. Maybe I wanted to see…” he swallowed. “I don’t know. Maybe, in a way, I just wanted to make sure that it was really over. I did so much to the galaxy on sheer will. I didn’t want that responsibility anymore. Because I was a coward. So…”

“Not a coward, Ben.” Kaidan held him closer, “Never a coward.”

They sat silently together, the jets at the base of their spine activating to keep the water at constant temperature.

“We’ve had a couple good times in a hot tub, haven’t we?” Shepard grinned after a bit.

“I guess we have at that,” Kaidan laughed, laid his head down atop Shepard’s. “We’re… we’re gonna have good times again.”

 

++

 

When the Citadel had closed, Aethyta had been trapped inside. The proprietor of this pub was dead, and she’d taken over since, playing a crucial role during the Citadel lock-down in distributing food and medical provisions.

“Guess I ended up being a little more Matriarchal than anyone expected, huh?” She beckoned Kaidan to sit down with nothing more than a chin-cock at his usual chair. “Helps when you can rip looters in half with your mind, though.”

Kaidan took a seat, rubbing a hand over his beard.

“Guess that can’t hurt,” he said, voice weary.

“You look tired,” she said, biting into a sandwich she’d been preparing when Kaidan walked back into the break-room. “What’s the matter?”

“I guess… I just thought that once Shepard’s legs worked again, he would cheer up just a bit. A little more than he has anyway.”

“Hasn’t, huh?” she said with her mouth full.

“Oh no, he has. He puts on a brave face. I feel like it’s all gonna be alright sometimes, but sometimes he just seems like he’s in so much pain…”

She wolfed down the rest of the sandwich and moseyed over, putting her hands on either side of Kaidan head.

“When wa’ the la’ time ‘u slept inna bed?” She brushed away a crumb she had let fly on Kaidan’s face. He looked up with a start.

“…what? I umm…”

“Just kidding,” she swallowed her bite at last. “I’ve been in your mind, I know it’s been forever. Just saying.”

He chuckled just a little.

“So you gonna be kicking down the doors of my psyche again, today?”

“Nah. Doors to your psyche are wide open today,” she smirked. “We’ll see if I need to headbutt something once I get inside, though.”

> _It was like the blackness on which the two stood was a thick velum that stretched out to the horizon and curved up to curtain the sky. Every movement seemed to set the taut fabric of night quaking, as if Kaidan were scuffing the texture with his boots, and the ripples were felt more than seen._
> 
> _Matriarch Aethyta looked around herself, brow deeply furrowed, arms akimbo._
> 
> _“This isn’t what I want, why would she…” But then the matriarch turned suddenly, barging past Kaidan and off into the darkness. Slowly, and with a sigh, he walked after her. She turned abruptly, “No! You stay there.”_
> 
> _He did as he was told, and a moment later, it was as if the pitch black above him were rushing down in waves, the way a curtain flutters to the ground after being cut from its rod. It settled over his skin and evaporated, and behind it, there was a cool breeze._
> 
> _“There,” Aethyta said, now behind him. She stared off into darkness while Kaidan looked ahead at a thin razor band of silver light, like the morning light of a single distant sun still below the horizon on a celestial dwarf. The night at Kaidan’s feet had the texture of water the impression of its sound without the sound itself. “There’s my girl.”_
> 
> _“What?” Kaidan turned, but Aethyta was no longer there. “Matriarch Aethyta?”_
> 
> _The silver band of light on the horizon bent up on Kaidan’s left and right, until the ends turned back on one another to form a ring in the sky: a total eclipse._
> 
> _There was something lurking within._
> 
> _Something monstrous, with quivering limbs and a low and horrifying scream._

Kaidan blinked and opened his eyes. Aethyta was stepping back, a smug smile on her face. Eyes black for one more moment before they faded.

“Good, very good,” it was barely a whisper. She paid Kaidan no mind, putting one arm on the table to balance her chin on her hand. She was almost biting her lip in amusement, eyes practically twinkling.

“What?” Kaidan urged. “Did you find it? D-did you find the cure?”

“Hmm?” The smile fell from her face, as if she had just noticed that Kaidan was still there. “Oh. No.”

Kaidan blinked.

“You… then what was all that about? I saw a Reaper in there! Just… just like Shepard described when he was talking about the Codex. I thought maybe that could have something to do with—Aethyta! Are you listening to me?”

“What? Yeah, yeah. I hear you kid,” she rolled her eyes, held out a hand and a bottle of whiskey flew into it.

“What did _you_ see?” Kaidan grit his teeth.

“Found where Liara let herself down into your mind,” Aethyta smiled. Poured a glass just for herself. “She’s young. She’s so strong, but goddess is she still young. Left a lot of herself behind, down there.”

“…Liara?” Kaidan was barely hiding his anger.

“She’s my own kid,” Aethyta scoffed, still very much to herself. “But _you’ve_ had a deeper connection with her than _I_ have. Figured I could learn a little something about my girl, long as I was rummaging down there anyway.”

Kaidan opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. This happened several times before he finally managed to speak in a low and dangerous tone.

“You’re supposed to be finding the cure for indoctrination in Shepard’s head. _Not_ invading Liara’s privacy through _my_ brain!”

“Privacy?” Aethyta scoffed. “Got nothing to do with it, kid! Not like I’m going to be siphoning out any of my daughter’s memories through _your_ primitive brain!” She swallowed her whiskey and slammed the glass down on the table. “I got to feel her presence. Her _temperament_ if you wanna call it that. Do you have any idea what that means to me? She’s my daughter. And as a goddamn information broker, she’s not likely to let me join with her any time, now, is she?”

“Don’t sort out your issues on my time!” Kaidan shouted.

“You didn’t think I wasn’t gonna get a little something for myself out of this deal, did you?” She shouted back in kind.

“I guess I just hoped,” he seethed.

“Yeah, nothing without a price, isn’t that right, soldier boy? Like the deal you spun with Leviathan. Everyone gets a little something they want. Just be happy you’ve _got_ something I want.”

“So this whole time,” he shuddered, enraged, “You’ve just been poking around for the trail Liara left when she joined with me?!”

“No! You pyjak!” She almost spilled her next pour. “But Liara’s signature is a helluva lot easier to get to than whatever shit they dumped in your head.” She swallowed another finger of whiskey. “Besides, now that I saw how Liara got down deep as she did with _no_ training, it’ll help on the next round.”

Kaidan buried his head in his hands, eyes closed. After a few very deliberate breaths, he looked back up, seemingly much more in control of his emotions.

“I just…”

“You’re just mad about the _way_ I’m getting it out of you, aren’t you?” She smirked, coldly.

“…I just want to focus on Shepard, is all.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She filled her glass again, but slid it to Kaidan, “It’s my only clean glass right now. We’ll take five, then we’ll go again.”

 

++

 

“What did that feel like?” Kaidan asked helping Shepard into the wheelchair to take him out for one of their walks around the grounds. “Getting your nervous system rebooted like a computer?”

“Pretty much just like that,” Shepard grinned, “Oh, wait.” He stood up, limped over to his bedside table—shooing Kaidan away when he offered to get whatever it was for him—and came back to the wheelchair with his data-pad. “Maybe you can read to me?”

Kaidan smiled, nodded.

“One day I would be seeing perfectly,” Shepard continued, sighing exhausted as Kaidan pushed him to the elevator. “Next day everything would be blurry. Then Miranda taps a button and I could’ve aced the Villa’s sharpshooter course. Some days no arms, some days no hearing.”

“That must have been hard.” The elevator crawled up from their sublevel to ground floor.

“It was.” Shepard spoke softly, “Miranda did all kinds of things to take my mind off it. Asked if there was anything she could read me.”

“That’s kind of her.” Kaidan pushed Shepard toward the sunlight streaming into the foyer.

“I had told her about reading _World of Wonders_ with you. She said she would read me the first book in the series—she knew I wanted to read it…” He fumbled, putting on his sunglasses. “But I wanted to wait.”

“Still waiting,” Kaidan chuckled.

“Yeah… just… want my head to be on straight so I can… really enjoy it.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway. My implants were giving her problems.”

“They’ve been giving _you_ plenty.” They walked out into the sun, past the tree where the Reaper invasion had stopped. Some of the photographs had been blown away, and were now tacked to the tree so they would remain, though no one had been out yet this morning to straighten the ones that had twisted up askew during the night.

“They’re more complex than I thought, I suppose. They don’t just mimic the things my body can’t do anymore—otherwise Cerberus could just have regrown a set of legs for me, new arm when they woke me up. But it replaces enough of the original muscles strands so they never atrophy, recycle the proteins faster. The VIs are always working to prevent my body from rejecting all the hardware, and they don’t just recode the synthetics, but they recode my actual tissue, too.”

“Woah,” Kaidan remarked.

“Yeah. Constant gene therapy on a cell-by-cell scale. There’s at least two dozen governing VIs in my brain that keep it all going. On top of all that, they’re also regrowing the parts of me that can be regenerated—but it’s slow. When my VIs shut down on…” Shepard swallowed, resisted a spasm in his spine, eyes fixed on the gravel path ahead of the wheel chair. “On the Citadel. After the Crucible wave, I should have died, but the VIs had already regenerated a lot more than they should have.”

Kaidan laughed, but Shepard only licked his lips and sighed.

“Fast learner, huh?” He pressed a kiss into Shepard’s hair.

“Maybe,” Ben said softly. “Starting up some of those VIs conflicted with what had already regenerated. The governing VIs in my brain… well, they monitor things from the evolutionary center of the brain. The way Dr. Chakwas described it back when was that  my psychological state influenced the healing of the scars on my face—negative feelings convince the implants they need to colonize more, even to the expense of the living tissue.”

“Mhm?”

Shepard shuddered. Looked up at the sky. Craned his neck over his shoulder, looking back to the hospital.

“Shepard?” Kaidan stopped pushing him forward.

“Can we go back to the tree?” Ben said, trying his best to smile. Kaidan didn’t hesitate, immediately turning them around.

It only took them about ten minutes to straighten all the pictures of lost family and friends tacked and laid about the old tree.

 

++

 

“How come you’re on the Citadel, Aethyta?” Kaidan’s uniform collar was unbuttoned, his hair sweaty and shoulders bowed after four intense sessions with the matriarch today. “After you made contact with Liara, after the coup. I would’ve thought you’d gone back to Thessia.”

“You would’ve thought wrong.” Aethyta was loading her dishes into a flash sanitizer, only cocking her head to one side to project over her shoulder to where Kaidan sat in the breakroom.

“Still keeping an eye on Liara? For the Council of Matriarchs?”

Aethyta finished loading, then walked away even as the sanitizer signaled the task was complete.

“We should talk about that later,” she crossed her arms, leaned against the door frame.

“Covert mission?” Kaidan asked, incredulous.

“Nah, kid,” she rolled her eyes. “The Council of Matriarchs agreed to take me back once my daughter became an info broker, plus I had a century or two to cool it and figure out how to get my ideas out there again. They still weren’t keen about my view of the galaxy, but with the Reapers bending the turians, the humans, the hanar all over a barrel, they needed all the ‘wise counsel’ they could get. Suddenly, an angry half Krogan who’d been telling our girls to get the hell back home and organize instead of shaking their asses on a table for street trash seemed like someone they wanted close.”

“But you stayed on the Citadel anyway? Or were… you on Thessia when…?”

“No,” she looked down, shoulders moving uncomfortably. “Saw the memories in your head though. That was hard to watch. Nah, kid, I stayed on the Citadel because after all that time of telling them to fuck the rest of the galaxy and take care of themselves, they finally listened to me. Just in time for me to change my tune on that, too. This wasn’t the time to shut ourselves off on Thessia and hope the Reapers went away.”

“I wondered about that.”

“Nah.” She came over and sat across from Kaidan again. “After seeing what Shepard and my daughter were risking out there, wasn’t gonna just let the Matriarchs get away with letting everybody else take the heat. At least, not with _me_ being a part of it. Would say ‘I told you so’, but it’s hard to thumb your nose at a corpse.”

Kaidan nodded solemnly, then pulled himself upright in the chair.

“Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go again.”

“ _Sure_ you don’t need to talk about the whole deal with Shepard and that Admiral a little more?” she asked, skeptical. “You head was full of that this morning, I’d rather clear through all that when I’m embracing a drink, not ‘eternity’.”

“No… I… Sorry about that. I think Shepard had been dreading that conversation, he wasn’t ready for it yesterday. It’s hard to always be called a liar, y’know? First about the Reapers, now about what happened on the Citadel.”

“Sounds familiar,” she yawned, cracked her back with a twist. “Alright. Bring your head over here, Major.”

> _Back to the white-hot center of Kaidan’s mind, where Aethyta had uncovered a complex neural network that was both all-too-human and entirely alien. They were surrounded by a lithium-bright fire, as if sinking through the curtains of plasma on the surface of a star._
> 
> _Aethyta grunted with annoyance, held out her hands._
> 
> _Just as suddenly, the two of them stopped sinking with a jolt. For the past few days, it had been a game of trial and error for Aethyta and Kaidan to not plummet straight through the heat and light and out the other side, the burning sun disappearing into an enveloping night as if it had never been there._
> 
> _There was the sense of that darkness, still, as if by squinting hard enough, it might be perceived as an uncanny loss of radiance in any direction other than the core that that was pulling them down. The matriarch crooked her hands like a claw, plunged it into the light around her, savagely ripping a hole through the living fabric of it to reveal—_
> 
> _Liquid darkness sloshing about within the gash, steaming out as if the heat were boiling it away._
> 
> _“Shit!”_
> 
> _She gave a kind of battle cry, grabbed an edge of the rent curtain of light, tore at it to widen the gash. It was as if ‘down’ and ‘up’ interposed, and both were tumbling down a billowing cloud of blazing energy, Aethyta still tearing apart as much as she could._
> 
> _The void suddenly spewed out of the wounded brightness, oil erupting from a well, vaporizing instantly on contact sometimes, but often ‘cooling’ the radiance with a hiss._

Both Aethyta and Kaidan were panting when they opened their eyes.

“I am _not_ young anymore,” Aethyta groaned.

“That was strange, right?” Kaidan madly blinked a drop of sweat out of his eyes. “I don’t know much about this, but that’s not normal, is it?”

“Thank the goddess: no.” She sprawled back in her chair, twisting her back until it popped. “That’s all I got for today, kid. Why don’t you get us some of that whiskey.”

Kaidan nodded slowly, jaw slack and eyes heavy-lidded from exhaustion. He raised a hand and the usual cupboard flew open, the whiskey bottle tumbling out, crackling with Kaidan’s biotics, over to their table.

They didn’t bother with glasses, drinking straight from the bottle and passing it silently back and forth with lazy biotic fields.

“You got a lotta stuff buried down there, kid,” Aethyta said, after a four or five pulls. “And I don’t mean the Leviathan thing.”

“Maybe I’m just… on my guard. After the whole ‘using my brain to get in touch with your daughter’ thing.”

Aethyta scoffed, but her heart wasn’t in it.

“Nah, I don’t think so. If anything, that made you feel more at home with me digging around than anything.”

++

“You never talk about what you and Aethyta are doing.” Shepard spoke so quietly, Kaidan had to lean in to hear him. 

“Shh, just… just rest, Ben.”

“No, I’m fine, really.”

“Won’t work on me, Ben.”

Shepard had pushed himself harder than he should have at the latest therapy session. Turns out, despite it all, the commander still had all the charm he always had—convincing his therapist he was good to go for far more than he should _ever_ have been allowed to do.

He had been exhausted, sore, and starving, but it wasn’t until they got back to Shepard’s new room on the third floor that he had been hit with a massive panic attack, convinced that _this_ time he would hear the voices he’d been listening for. An hour later, he was a sweaty mess tangled up in the sheets of his bed.

Kaidan had just returned from stepping into the hall to beg off his appointment with the matriarch.

“Yeah, it does,” Ben smiled, weary, but full of life. “Thank god it does.” He kissed Kaidan’s hand, and Kaidan couldn’t suppress the laugh that bubbled out his lips.

“Yeah, you charmed me plenty, Commander.”

“Only reason you put up with me,” he winked.

Kaidan shook his head at that, his smiling leveling somewhat.

“We’ll get to make those jokes sometime soon, but… not right now, okay?”

“You’re worried I’m still in such bad shape, huh?”

“Aren’t you? Dammit, Ben, I just held you through one of those attacks.”

“They’re strong,” Shepard swallowed, looked Kaidan dead in the eye. “We’re stronger. Together. We are. I’m stronger with you here. No matter what… if… If I… have to live the rest of my life like that, out of this hospital bed, with those attacks. I can do it.”

They held each other’s gaze for a long time before Kaidan nodded.

“Okay. But maybe you won’t have to.” He stroked Shepard’s arm. “Chakwas is working with Aethyta, they think they’ve got something and… Miranda says your governing VIs are almost completely reprogrammed—I’ve been helping out with the coding. So. There’s lots to be optimistic about.”

“Yeah.” Shepard reached down to pull his sheet up to his shoulders with a shaking hand, but Kaidan stepped up to do it and Ben didn’t shoo him away. “Once, while you were gone…” he cleared his throat, couldn’t look at Kaidan. “Something about the way the VIs respond to positive or negative thought patterns, my lungs crashed. Hard. I almost died. The, uh, the cybernetics had started colonizing, pulling nitrogen out of the air to fuel the replication, stopped passing oxygen on to my blood.”

“…oh god, Shepard.”

“Felt like… when I went down over Alchera. Or like I was getting crushed under the sea on Despoina.”

“You said that when I first left you were trying to…. Well… were you…?”

“I wasn’t, no,” Shepard swallowed. “That’s what made me worried. It just happened. Miranda thought that it could be related to the indoctrination but,” he turned his head. “I _am_ doing better, Kaidan. I am. I want to live. I want to get well, and I want to be with you. And I will fight this or accept it or transform this experience and whatever else the psychiatrist says I should be doing. My whole life, I’ll do it, Kaidan. But if all that’s not enough, I want you to know that I _love_ you, and that this is my happy ending. Just this. Just you with me, like this.”

Kaidan closed his eyes, leaned into Shepard’s touch against his cheek, and silently crawled into the bed, melting into Shepard’s arms around him.

++

Aethyta had been engaged in a vigorous conversation with two salarians at the bar, so Kaidan walked to the break room by himself. He was staring at a strange little medallion hung in a frame on the wall when the matriarch finally joined him.

“Sorry ‘bout that, kid,” she cracked her knuckles and began rummaging through the cupboards. “Evlihel Systems is cheating the Alliance on the price of their atmospheric processors. So guess who gets to tighten the screws on ‘em to find out if they’re cheating the asari government on the same?”

“Atmospheric processors?” Kaidan quirked an eyebrow. Aethyta gave him an incredulous look.

“That’s right. Reapers really fuck over a planet with their emissions. Alliance just rented 82 scrubbers for the next 25 years so your planet doesn’t drop into an ice age. Still, gonna be a bitch of a winter, I bet.”

“Oh,” Kaidan frowned to himself for a moment. Then returned his gaze to the medallion on the wall.

“It’s not for sale, if that’s what you’re after.”

“Hm? Oh. No. I just never noticed it up here. What is it?”

“’Daughters of Tuchanka.’” Aethyta pulled up her usual chair. “About 700 years ago, couple of us girls, fathers were krogan, decided we were gonna get together and form that little club. We figured we could make better use of what we had left of our maiden years moving to Tuchanka, help however we could—try to find a cure for the Genophage, do whatever we could. Swore off our heritage as asari, were ready to cash in our inheritances and spend it on power generators and water reclamation units. Ready to kidnap some salarian scientists. You got an imagination.”

“…that’s a neat idea.”

“Yeah, pretty funny, huh?” She gave the medallion a sour look.

“How long did it last?”

“We gave it a good shot,” she sighed. “But it hardly got off the ground. You know who makes good fathers? Krogan. All of us had great dads, and most of us had dead dads: the girls and me. Dead in merc raids, clan wars—my folks killed each _other_ —that was what it meant to be krogan to all them. To the Daughters of Tuchanka? The ‘krogan legacy’ was great fathers, strong leaders, knock-you-on-your-ass ryncol, and family. We got to Tuchanka and found out: no matter how much _our_ dads loved us, we were nobody to the clans.”

“So what’d you do?”

“Went to Illium and got a job. Found out that, all the ways it matters? You don’t get to just walk away from being an asari.” She beckoned Kaidan closer, “We getting on with this? Or you too tired from pushing Shepard around those gardens all day?”

“Do your worst.”

“Been talking with Karin. Her team thinks the Crab Monsters used some kind of genetic code to seal it in your brain. Means it’d be able to adapt to any species in the galaxy, even though it’s embedded in a human head. You and me get to test that today so I can get back to her on that.”

> _White all around them, every kind of diaphanous and solid and milky light, carved out of the bright star at the center of Kaidan’s mind. Like a vast snowy landscape, and the light flaked down just like snow or ash, so heavy in the distance that the above and below of the whole scene were all one substance. Carved out with Aethyta’s bare hands._
> 
> _She marched with purpose past Kaidan, holding her hand out behind her, melting the footprints she left in the ‘snow’ back into an unbroken swath._
> 
> _Kaidan followed after._

 

++

 

The new room Shepard had been moved to on the third floor had windows.

Propped in his bed, when the curtains were open, the old tree he and Kaidan walked past every morning on their walks was clearly visible, as was the extensive destruction beyond—all the more palpable, taken as a panoramic scene.

“I don’t think I can ever really forgive myself,” Shepard turned his head away. “For what happened on the Citadel, I don’t know. Everyone tells me I saved the galaxy, but if you saw what I saw in the Echo Shard, you know it could have been better. The universe could be such a different place, right now.”

“You don’t know that, Shepard. _I_ don’t know that either.”

“Don’t I?” He slouched down into the pillows, lines across his forehead indicating the pain was welling up inside him once again. “That courtyard outside, the one the Reapers destroyed. They could be helping to rebuild that right now. All those people whose loved-ones got turned into… into… that the Reapers took. To make those sacrifices mean something.”

“What?” Kaidan huffed, thick brows furrowed over flashing eyes, “Cannibals helping grieving families pin the pictures of their loved ones to the trees? _Brute’_ s carrying banners at the triumphal march on Tuchanka?”

“Hey,” Shepard shook his head, looked at Kaidan gently. “I know that this is hard for us to talk about, together. It… makes me depressed and it makes you angry, but, I _need_ to talk about this, okay?”

Kaidan came to his feet, paced over to the window, shoulders strung tight. When he walked back a moment later, the dark circles under his eyes were even more apparent.

“I’m sorry, Ben. I just…” he looked down at the deep scar in his palm, “Those memories I saw hit me hard, too. For a different reason, I guess. I just wish there would have been something I could have done. I should’ve been there with you.” He looked up at Ben under heavy brows, lips parted in a worried expression. “But maybe that was the problem, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t, I mean. I wasn’t there, and you’re your own man—and I love that about you—and I would never think that anything I did could make you give up the man I’ve come to love. B-but,” he bit his lip. “I lie awake at night sometimes and feel like… I can’t help but think that maybe my big, dumb, idealistic talk—all those times on the Normandy talking about integrity, and the _right_ way of doing things—that that’s the reason you’re so torn up now.”

“No, Kaidan. No. Never. Those conversations—“

“I felt it in the Echo Shard, Ben. That hesitation. When it mattered, I was only there in your heart to make you more confused.” His jaw clenched, made the muscles in his neck standout. “But it brought you back to me and—“

“—Hey,” Ben pulled himself closer, helping Kaidan relax the fist he’d clenched around the bedsheets. “Look at me— _Kaidan._ Look at me. Listen: I don’t know if the choice I made was the right one. I don’t know if I ever will. And I wouldn’t wish that choice on anyone. Shouldn’t have come down to any one person. But if anyone in this galaxy was the right person for the job,” Shepard smiled, “It should have been _you,_ Kaidan. And every day I’m grateful I got to take the burden away from you.”

“No, Ben I—“

“— _you.”_ Shepard nodded, more emphatically. Though the vein on his forehead stood out the way it did when a major attack of the pseudo-indoctrination was upon him, he carried on. “ _You_ would have made the right choice. Neither of us will ever know, in the moment, what you would have chosen. But I believe in _you,_ Kaidan. So I’m grateful, every day, that we had all those conversations. That you were with me,” he pulled Kaidan’s hand to his chest. “That you at least taught me, gave me a _chance_ to see another perspective. I’m not sure of the choice I made. I’m sure of the man who taught me there _was_ a choice.”

Kaidan was quiet a long time, hand still pressed to the thump of Shepard’s heart through his breastbone.

“You did the human thing, Ben,” he whispered, at last. “Just. Don’t go into those dark place alone anymore, okay?”

“…okay.”

The windows rattled when the wind blew, and down in the courtyard, the memorial tree shook, strong and flexible, in the gusts.

“There’s something else I wanted to tell you,” Shepard began. He stared off out the window, eyes focused on the glass rather than the world beyond. His hand was limp in Kaidan’s, as if any determination left in his body was all tasked with wrenching the words out of him.

“Okay, Ben. Okay.”

“When my lungs collapsed—while you were away—I was thinking about all the time we spent together, and how we needed someone like you on the Citadel. Miranda was doing tests all the time, didn’t like leaving me alone. I kept thinking back to Legion. Going into the Geth Consensus.”

“It, uh. It feels like years ago, huh?” Kaidan stroked a thumb across the back of Shepard’s hand.

“He gave me a gun,” Shepard blinked. “He made the program we used to fight off the Reaper infection look like a _gun_ so that I would feel more comfortable.”

“I remember that, yeah.”

“…in Huerta, while I was visiting you, there was an asari who was suffering from the trauma of the Reaper invasion on a Tiptree. She had been caught in the shower. She didn’t have her gun with her. Talking with her doctor, all she wanted was a gun so she could defend herself. So she could be sure of it.”

“I, uh, I think I saw her walking around once I was up and about, yeah.”

“I knew exactly how she felt. Legion knew that about me, too. My whole life I’ve had my fists, my guns. That’s how I kept myself alive, and it took me a long time to learn how to use those skills for others. Fight the Reapers. To protect people.

“EDI felt it, too. It’s how we’re made. EDI was created to operate the cyberwarfare suite. From the Tenth Street Reds, into the Alliance: trained to be the man with the gun. Cerberus _rebuilt me_ , same way they did EDI, to hold the gun.”

“They brought you back,” Kaidan interrupted, softly, “because you’re a leader. Because you inspire hope.”

“’Hope’ with a gun,” Shepard nodded. “During the war, I could believe what the newspapers said about me. Samara talked to me in our apartment about the stories the future generations would tell about me. And that was enough, as long as I was still fighting the Reapers. It was enough to act like that hero and ‘be’ what people thought of me. But I’m _built_ to hold a gun. It isn’t hard for me, you know, it never had been: to go into those impossible firefights.”

“Yeah, you, uh. You sure do keep a cool head.”

“More than that. Like one of those deep-sea creatures. Built to dive into the darkness, the pressure, the cold.” On the word ‘cold’ a shiver ran through Shepard’s body. “Gun in hand. And that commando in Huerta? Her request for a gun came through the Spectre terminal for me to sign off on. I couldn’t do it. I knew exactly what she was _really_ going to do with that gun, even then. After what she’d seen, what she’d done. It wasn’t like Akuze—on Akuze I survived because I was lucky. She survived because… she killed a little girl. Once you dive that deep, you can’t come back to the surface. The body’s just not made for it. I thought I knew. I knew that was a possible future, for me.

“And I’ve done things I’m not proud of, too. Terrible things. But there was still a ‘story’ of me I had to see through, to honor the people who stood with me against the Reapers. But once I was alone in that bed, I started thinking.” He looked up at Kaidan, then, “I started to wonder. By choosing to destroy the Reapers, did I hand the gun back to humanity? Knowing exactly what they’d do with it. Are we just ‘built’ like that?”

Kaidan allowed himself a few breaths before answering.

“I dunno if I can answer that, Shepard. But… You compared yourself to EDI, but she was… more than that. Always was, and she was always growing, too. I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”

Shepard actually gave a throaty chuckle.

“That’s sort of what I told the Reapers. And besides, even though everything was going to hell up there, I still thought of you.” His hand tightened around Kaidan’s, then. “You’re not like that, Kaidan. So maybe there was hope after all.”

“I’m not that special, Ben,” Kaidan looked away, huffed a modest chuckle. “Maybe you give me more credit than I deserve.”

“Now you know how it feels.” He actually smiled. Kaidan looked up, blinked, then burst out laughing.

“I don’t know about you sometimes, Shepard.” He leaned forward, kissed Shepard on the brow.

Shepard blinked, face a hazy mask of happiness, drinking in the light in Kaidan’s eyes.

“I don’t either,” he took Kaidan’s hand in both of his and leaned forward, kissed Kaidan’s knuckles. “I was in a place, up there… where whatever I chose, the world was going to be polluted with what I was. What I am. The violence, the… uncertainty. I poured all that into the world when I chose to kill the geth, the Reapers, EDI.” He seemed to force himself to meet Kaidan’s eyes, “Everything I knew about instinct and survival, all my hope: that should have gone, too, at least. But I was selfish, kept some back. Like you saw. I wanted to live, wanted to survive. Wanted to see you again.”

“…and then?” Kaidan asked, when Shepard had been quiet for a long moment.

“Then my lungs collapsed. VIs went crazy. All my scars opened back up over the next couple days… I almost died more than once.” Shepard took a deep breath.

“But you’re so much better now!” Kaidan brushed his fingertips across the rough stubble on Shepard’s cheek.

“I started improving pretty fast, after that.”

“What changed?”

Ben gave him a helpless look, shook his head.

“I don’t know. Every time I think about it, the voices get worse… but I wanted to see you again, and I knew you were coming back to me. Plenty of people in the galaxy feel the same way right now. It’s what I think about in therapy when it gets bad. When Miranda’s codes aren’t interfacing. When I think about EDI.”

“I’m going to be here for you, Ben.”

“I know.”

 

++

 

There was a message in Kaidan’s inbox from the Matriarch Aethyta: Kaidan would need to meet her in Kithoi Warehouse 929F, if he still wanted to meet, today. Kaidan messaged back immediately saying he would meet her there. There was no time to waste.

It was one of the smaller warehouses, in the districts typically used by the lower-tier smuggling operations. The syndicates and the mercs all had huge, bright warehouses closer to the Ward points: big enough to be untouchable. But K 929F was only a few acres, in one of the quieter blocks that saw activity every few weeks. This morning, it was dimly lit and almost entirely emptied, except for a modest collection of smaller crates in the center of the floor.

Matriarch Aethyta was sitting cross-legged on top of one, tooling with figures on a data-pad when Kaidan came in. The air was humid, heavy, the way it typically was whenever a volus transport had just filled its high-pressure hold. Combined with the cold, it was like a hoary morning inside the warehouse. The silence of the empty warehouse was only interrupted by the groan of cranes in the next block over, and the echo of Kaidan’s footsteps.

“Kaidan, hey,” Aethyta didn’t bother looking up. “You look like hell.”

“Hm,” Kaidan grunted. He crossed the empty space, shoulders strung tight, walking as if he were wading through mud, eyes half-closed. Aethyta finally peeked over the top of her pad.

“Goddess, kid, you’re looking worse than usual.”

“Long day yesterday,” Kaidan buttoned his collar against the cold. “Long night last night.”

“Shepard still having problems, eh?” She sipped from a mug on the crate next to her.

“ _Still_ ,” Kaidan snapped. “And he’s gonna until we get this cure out of my head.”

“What happened?” Aethyta took another sip, squinting against the steam rolling off the lip of her mug.

“He just,” Kaidan mashed his palm against his forehead, “He had a bad reaction after therapy. Pushed himself too hard.”

“You said the other day he was doing better.”

“Yeah, well…” Kaidan huffed.

“I mean, he’s gonna have ups and downs.”

“Yeah. I know.” His shoulders tensed.

“…do you _feel_ like he’s not getting better, or is he _really_ not getting better?” She cocked a brow.

“Now just what the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?” Kaidan’s fists were clenched at his side, one eyelid just sagging against the pain in his head. Aethyta left him like that for a long moment, keeping an easy eye contact, while his body gradually relaxed. Finally, Kaidan closed his eyes, pinched his nose, turned away. After a few deep breaths, he managed: “Sorry. I guess I’m a little high-strung today.”

“Kid, your default setting is high-strung.” She set her mug down and placed her feet on the floor, “Least, as long as I’ve known you. Lucky for you, I’ve been dealing with high-strung all day.” Aethyta, crackling blue, used her biotics to move one crate to the side, revealing the label on another before scanning it with her omni-tool.

When Kaidan managed to turn back, he let his eyes fall to one of the crates.

“These… are from Omega.”

“Well, well,” Aethyta rolled her eyes, “Still earning that Spectre title, huh Major?”

They were eezo crates. The only kind that came in such small containers was the highly refined sort used in experimental research—more refined than even a weapons-grade.

“What are you doing with eezo crates?” He raised an eyebrow, voice low.

“Aria’s boys dropped ‘em off this morning, cleared out the rest of the cache I’d been holding here for her.”

“You know Aria?”

“I know she has shit I need.”

“…is this legal?”

Aethyta stopped, brought herself to full-height.

“Are you kidding me, kid?” She crossed her arms, head cocked to one side. “Go be with your boyfriend, Kaidan. You’re exhausted, I’m busy, and I can already tell we’re not gonna get anywhere, today.”

“No,” Kaidan seethed. “You… you said we could meet today.”

“Well, now I’ve changed my mind,” Aethyta turned her back, picked up her mug for another sip.

“…nothing _you_ wanna get out of my head, today?” Kaidan’s tone was acid. “Another memory of your daughter you wanna watch over my shoulder?”

“You’re a special kind of ungrateful, kid,” she snapped.

“…Matriarch…” Kaidan tried to still his breathing, “Frankly, I don’t care _what_ you’re doing in here, why you’re trading with Aria. I don’t care if it’s illegal,” his breathing was speeding up, a tremor in his hands, “But. Shepard needs my help. _Our_ help. And… and we… _owe_ it to him… _I_ owe it to him.”

“You don’t owe him anything,” Aethyta scoffed, leaned a hip against one of the crates. “You _love_ him. Big fucking difference, trust me. I’ve had more lovers than you’ve got gray-hairs.”

“He saved the galaxy, and now he needs help—“

“Please!” She sputtered  into her mug, licking the hot liquid off her lips, eyes locked with Kaidan’s, “This galaxy worships your boyfriend like he’s a god!”

“ _And that doesn’t help him one damn bit, right now!”_ Kaidan’s voice ricocheted off the empty walls. “Just because I couldn’t… just cuz _nobody_ else could do what Shepard could do to stop the Reapers, doesn’t mean that he has to do _this_ alone, too! We need to get this cure out of my head!”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Aethyta stormed up to Kaidan, “This cure you’re after? To help Shepard? Do you have any idea how many people need that same cure?”

“Wh-what?” Kaidan’s voice still trembled with rage.

“The Reapers, asshat!” Spittle was flying off her teeth, “They indoctrinated hundreds of people on every world they occupied, made sure the leaders were keeping their people pacified while they were harvested! You think they all got magically better when that Crucible went off? No!”

“…I know other people were indoctrinated, but—“

“ _Most_ of them spend their days strapped to a bed, sedated so they don’t throw themselves out a window. Leaders respected all over the galaxy are fucking vegetables right now, waiting for someone to figure out this cure. And here you are with your head in your ass about helping out your boyfriend who is doing _way_ better than you’re willing to admit, _Major!_ ”

“I—“

“And _this_ shit?” She gestured broadly to the crates at her side, “Who in the hell do you think is gonna be rebuilding the Mass Relays? I’ve been pushing building our own since your species was still deciding whether or not they wanted to nuke themselves back into the stone-age! With the eezo agreement from Omega, I’ve finally got the go-ahead to start building.” She turned on her heel to return to where she’d left her mug.

“I’m sorry,” Kaidan said through grit teeth. “We’re both under a lot of stress, and—“

“There’s a whole galaxy trying to find out what to do next, Kaidan,” she turned back around, lifting her mug to her lips and downing the contents in a single swig. “It’s moving along all by itself without you.”

“I know there’s a lot of work to be done,” Kaidan’s nostrils flared, but he kept his tone level. “Right now, what _I_ need to do is help Shepard.”

“Ha,” Matriarch Aethyta set the mug down, crossed her arms. “So much for Mr. Duty-First.”

“Shepard’s a soldier,” Kaidan’s voice trembled. “I’m a soldier. He was an inspiration _because_ he was a soldier. He put on a brave face for the vids and the interviews because he had to. We don’t _need_ a soldier right now—and Shepard isn’t going to inspire anyone until he’s _better._ ”

“And neither are you.”

“What?”

“Neither are you,” Aethyta brushed one finger over her eyebrow, sighed. “You’re not gonna get it. Well, can’t say I wasn’t hoping for this a little bit.” She cracked her knuckles.

“…what are you talking about?”

“Your head’s a nest of vipers, kid. We’re gonna exercise those demons a little bit today. You want me to work on pulling that cure out of your head? Well then, today we’re going to start off with a little sparring.”

She stepped away from the crates, circling around Kaidan.

“I don’t want to spar with you…” Kaidan’s eyes narrowed.

“I’ll go easy on you.”

“I _don’t_ want to spar.”

“Can’t hide it from me, kid. Can’t hide it from Shepard, either. You like a fight, you’ve been itching for it.” She grinned, “Didn’t wanna tear up my café, though.”

Kaidan’s eyes got wide, but in another breath he squared his shoulders, hands balling into fists at his side.

“Alright.”

“Good,” Aethyta cracked her neck, threw her hands up. “I’ll start.”

Her biotics crackled around her so suddenly the deep thrum of it echoed around them, and Kaidan just had time to throw up a barrier as the dark energy crashed against him. By the time he responded with a bolt of his own, the space where Aethyta had been was empty.

Another blast impacted his barrier, sending him flying into and over the stack of crates. The empty mug shattered to the floor, and Kaidan scrambled for cover.

“This would be easier, huh?” Aethyta shouted over the burning roar of her own biotic aura. “If we could just kill the fucking indoctrination inside Shepard’s head?”

With a rattle, the crates Kaidan hid behind lifted into the air, and he smirked.

Whipping around, back flat to the ground, he threw his hands forward and the crates bulleted out from his biotic field, aimed at where Aethyta stood, mouth agape. They hit her barriers with a dull thud and she rocketed backwards with them. Kaidan had time to come to his feet, strengthen his barriers.

Then, the crates launched off Aethyta’s barriers with such force the ping-ponged off walls and ceiling.

Aethyta rocketed forward, a comet-tail of energy behind her, straight for Kadain’s chest. He caught her with his arms before he could catch her with his biotics, and they tumbled over one another. She raised a burning fist. Kaidan managed the smallest of warp fields, targeted at a passing crate, still floating wrapped in a biotic glow.

The detonating force of the two biotic fields discharging blasted them both apart.

“You think you’ve always gotta fight, don’t you? Like you’re not helping if you’re not fighting. _Just_ like Shepard. Need to get your hands dirty.”

She slammed her palm to the ground when Kaidan raised his barriers again, and the deck plating rocked, taking Kaidan off his feet. She used the moment to stagger back and try to catch her breath.

“Trying so hard to do the right thing, you can’t ever believe that what _you_ want could ever be _enough_ ,” she panted. “Come on. _Come on_ , kid! Show me that wild-side that murdered that turian asshole!”

The lights flickered and a singularity appeared between the two, almost immediately lifting Kaidan off his feet, sucking him in. He pawed at the ground for purchase. Panting heavily, his eyes flashed blue and the deck plates crumpled up into his hands. Aethyta limped around the blazing singularity to watch Kaidan hovering in the air, pulled inexorably in, the air quaking around him with the force of his biotics trying to propel him away.

“Well, the universe doesn’t give a fuck if you’re helping or not!” she scoffed over the squealing deckplates and the drone of the flashing singularity. “Take it from me. You know how hard I fought in the Council of Matriarchs?”

Kaidan screamed against the force of the singularity, finally letting go and tumbling backwards. The singularity erupted when he made contact, a warp field large enough to detonate Aethyta’s colossal field. When the explosion dissipated, he crouched there, breathing through his teeth, blue flames wicking off his barrier.

“This isn’t a ‘fight’ kid, this thing with you and Shepard,” Aethyta continued, pushing one of the floating crates away from her face. “He’s not ‘fighting’ to survive. He’s healing. He wants a _life_ , Kaidan. So do you. The universe ain’t gonna take care of its heroes, but it’s gonna get by all by itself without you boys, for a while.”

Kaidan rose to his feet, brows still heavy over flashing eyes.

“I should have been with him. I should have been more _like_ him,” Kaidan growled between ragged breaths. “I met Leviathan. They were in my head. I should be on that bed just like him.”

“But you aren’t. And you _weren’t_ with him.”

“I know, dammit! I just—“

“He’s a legend, now, Kaidan. You’re wrapped up in that, too, and you’re gonna wonder what that means—if something you said to Shepard after a few drinks and a hot fuck made him kill-off the first-ever, peaceful, synthetic species. You’re gonna wonder if you did what you did with Leviathan because it was the good Spectre thing to do or because it was the thing _Kaidan_ wanted to do for Shepard. And you wonder if _you_ feel this way, or if you’re just trying to absorb it all because _Shepard_ feels that way.”

“I love him,” Kaidan’s voice was strained.

“Good for you!” the Matriarch scoffed, blasting Kaidan off his feet with a surprise attack. “What does that even mean, huh? Fighting for him? Living for him? Dying for him?”

Kaidan rolled back, and caught himself just in time to catch a bolt right to his chest, the biotic field yanking him back towards Aethyta’s glowing fist. Instead, she caught him by the collar of his uniform with her other hand.

“You’re tied together, now, you and Shepard. Help the galaxy, or watch the galaxy burn, you’re gonna do it together. That’s a given. And you’re gonna hafta heal together, too.”

She threw him to the ground and he rolled away just as her sparking fist slammed down where his head had been.

“What if there _is_ no cure!” Kaidan shouted, barrier flickering when he came to his feet, fists up. “What if once-indoctrinated-always-indoctrinated? After all this…”

“Well then I guess you’ll have to be like the rest of us,” Aethyta narrowed her eyes, her controlled expression turning to a malevolent glare. “You think everyone in this galaxy isn’t afraid, just like you are?” She flung a bolt at Kaidan’s head, one he just managed to deflect before ducking left and trying to lift her off her feet. She lit blue and floated up and over the wave.

“I’ve seen what indoctrination can do,” he panted.

“Sure you have!” she crowed, battering against Kaidan with a colossal warp field. “Seen more of it than anyone, watched Saren pull the trigger against his own temple, didn’t you? And Nezzie…” she seethed. Back on the ground, she knocked Kaidan to the ground, a biotic field holding his struggling body down. She pressed a knee against his throat. “ _My_ Benezia. What cure did _she_ get?” she screamed. “Don’t think I didn’t see _that_ in your head! Watched through your eyes while you _killed_ my Nezzie! Wouldn’t it be nice if _she_ had a cure? And what did she get, Major Alenko!? Is that what you’re afraid of for you and Shepard? The universe has got its legend now and you wonder if it left anything for you and your ‘love’? What Nezzi got? _‘No light’!?”_

She was inches from Kaidan’s face, her screams and the popping of her biotic field echoing into the emptiness. Kaidan’s eyes rolled back, and his body bucked…

There was a flash, and Aethyta was sailing through the air in twisting biotic discharges. She landed with a thud and Kaidan rolled onto his side to cough and gasp for breath.

“Ugh,” Aethyta groaned, gingerly clutching her middle, a trickle of bright blood running down her face. “Ow.”

“Yeah,” Kaidan said softly, struggling to breathe normally. “I’m afraid of that.” They both lay on the floor breathing and wincing, before Kaidan continued. “Like no time will ever be enough. But it’s never gonna be enough.” He let his head thud against the deck. “It’s all enough.”

Aethyta moaned again, lightly touching her middle.

“Did… did you just _reave_ me?”

“Sorry,” Kaidan panted, eyes closed.

“No, I mean, it’s fine. Just wish I knew I was fighting a damn Justicar. But now I’m _really_ gonna need a day off before I go back in your mind,” she winced again. “…where the hell did you learn to reave, kid?”

Kaidan shrugged, rolled onto his back on the cold floor, gulping in the humid air.

“Just practice. I guess.”

“Well fuck me, that hurt,” Aethyta rolled onto her back as well. The crates that had been drifting through the air around the bay finally dimmed, crashed to the ground. The matriarch grinned between gasps for air, “…wanna learn how to make a singularity?”

Kaidan sputtered an uneasy chuckle which set him coughing, then laughed between deep, sucking breaths.

“I’d rather learn to float.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter:
> 
> The End.


	62. The Difference between the Ending and the Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is where the story leaves off for legend.

A week after Aethyta and Dr. Chakwas cracked the cure for indoctrination, Kaidan began reading Shepard _Fifth Business_.

“Is it going to be strange, reading these books out of order like this?” Shepard leaned his head back on the pillow, eyes tracking Kaidan’s tread as the other man tidied up the little hospital room and grabbed the data-pad from the couch.

“If I remember right,” Kaidan chuckled, smoothing the blanket over Shepard’s feet before taking his usual seat in the plush chair he had dragged right to the head of Shepard’s bed. “ _You_ were the one who wanted me to read you the last book in the trilogy without reading either of the other two.”

“You know me,” Shepard grinned. “Always jumping into the middle of things.”

“I’ve got some experience with your gift for timing, that’s for sure.”

The therapy Dr. Chakwas and her team had developed involved treatment every other day, usually after Shepard’s daily PT—Chakwas had even joked that some physical exhaustion could help the process along. That had made Shepard grin and Kaidan roll his eyes: Ben had already been pushing too hard when the physical therapist wasn’t watching.

“There’s a lot of life to live,” Shepard bit his lip, smoothing his fingers over the hospital linens: hardcoding. “I like coming in at the right moment.”

Kaidan unbuttoned the top-most button of his shirt and settled in.

“To answer your question, I think you’ll be fine.” He looked up and noticed Ben’s bright smile, returned it in kind. “Uhh, heh.” He scooched the chair a few inches closer to the bed. “They all stand alone. I think so, anyway.”

“So there isn’t one continuing story?”

“Well,” Kaidan shrugged. “There _is_ , I guess. And some of the characters carry over.”

The gene-therapy involved in ridding Shepard’s mind of the last traces of indoctrination would take a year or two to complete its work. But, Chakwas had assured him that after a few months he would likely be free of symptoms, and the remaining genetic modifications would essentially be repairing the deepest damage. Meanwhile, the sonic therapy Chakwas’ team had developed gave Shepard just over 48 hours free of symptoms.

“So you remember Dunstan Ramsey?” Kaidan asked. “The older character from _World of Wonders_?”

“Old man. False leg. Writes about saints.” Shepard nodded.

“Good memory,” Kaidan smirked. “This book is all narrated by him. It starts when he’s just a child and talks about how he started getting interested in saints and stuff. Talks about how he fought in the war. Met the magician. Developed his little rivalry with his childhood friend.”

“Okay then,” Shepard narrowed his eyes. “So a lot like _World of Wonders_? But with Dunstan’s life-story, not Magnus’?”

“Yeah,” Kaidan scratched the back of his neck. “Well, all three books are a different person’s life-story, yeah. But they’ve each kinda got… y’know, a different flavor.”

According to Miranda, only about two dozen hospitals across the galaxy were still able to host the sort of equipment required to administer the indoctrination cure. The Reapers had, for the most part, only indoctrinated those in high profile positions: politicians, ambassadors, celebrities, community leaders. While many such leaders had been very apparently indoctrinated in the eyes of their people, many were more subtle agents for the Reapers, and the horrific symptoms they suffered once the Reapers were destroyed were largely covered up by those invested in maintaining their legacy. Trying to get an accounting of exactly how many eminent figures in the galactic community needed treatment had been difficult.

“Are all the characters in all three books?” Shepard quirked an eyebrow.

“Yeah, absolutely,” Kaidan touched the data-pad, displaying the first chapter of _Fifth Business_.

“Just the same story from another angle, then?”

“Not exactly, there’s not a lot of overlap. And by the end of each book, we move a little further ahead in time.”

Shepard thought for a moment, then shrugged.

“I guess I’ll figure it out as we go. Go ahead.” He settled back into the bed and closed his eyes. Kaidan watched him relax for a lingering moment, then began to read.

When Shepard had been brought into the hospital’s imaging center for the first round of treatment, the air had been electric with the mingled anxiousness and anxiety of the doctors—more than a dozen packed into the room. Genius salarian geneticists, an asari neurotherapy specialist or two, a few volus imaging experts: only Doctor Chakwas, keeping a tight rein on her team’s fretfulness, kept the room calm as Shepard had slipped into the modified deep-imaging scanner. Before the process began, Kaidan had leaned in and stroked Shepard’s face, kissed him on the lips.

Only a few pages into _Fifth Business_ and Shepard stopped Kaidan’s narrative.

“Wait, this is the story of Magnus’ mother!”

“Well, yeah,” Kaidan blinked. “They mention this scene in later books.”

“So it’s his story then? Magnus?”

“No, not completely. I mean, _yes,_ it is. But no more than it’s Dunstan’s.” Kaidan laughed, “I guess I always viewed it as Dunstan’s story, even though he’s barely in the other two books.”

“You read _this_ one first though, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Kaidan scratched at his chin. “Guess it got my perspective skewed.”

“I guess that’s what I get for jumping into the middle of the story, isn’t it?” Shepard stroked the soft hairs on the back of Kaidan’s forearm, leaned on his bed. “Especially when it’s all told after the fact, on top of everything.”

“ _This_ whole story is told after the fact, most of the next book too. So is _World of Wonders_ , like you saw. So I guess there’s some room for interpretation.” Kaidan laughed.

Seeing Kaidan laugh made Shepard laugh.

Chakwas’ team had cheered yesterday when, days after starting treatment, Shepard had reported a phenomenal decrease in his attacks. Kaidan had even voiced his surprise at the speed with which Shepard was taking to the treatment—having seen him almost every moment of his hospitalization, Miranda had warned him that noticing results would be most difficult for him, being so close to the gradual change. As much as the doctors warned Shepard, they warned Kaidan: there would be good days and bad days. First they had told him that he should not become discouraged by bad days. Then they warned that he shouldn’t get his hopes too high when Shepard did better than any of the estimates had predicted. ‘Shepard’s was always a story of bucking the odds’ they had said, both times—even those that knew how Shepard had clawed his way through his physical therapy, learning to walk again, organs learning to perform their functions again.

They spoke of him in the past tense, as if his story ended on the Citadel in the explosion that rid the galaxy of the Reapers. As if they couldn’t believe he was really on their operating table, healing his mind of the last vestiges of the Illusive Man and Harbinger. In private, Miranda confided that she and Jacob Taylor had taken a while to remember to discuss Shepard in the present tense for several days when they first came aboard the SR-2.  Like a figure in a story-book they already knew the ending too: valiant Shepard, surrounded by loyal friends, doing what he believed in. Gone.

“I’m sorry to make you read it out of order,” Shepard beamed, “But I guess, the position we were in, needed to skip to the end of the story if I wanted to be sure I’d see it at all.” He squeezed Kaidan’s hand. “I don’t mind starting off at beginning again at all.”

Kaidan winked, dark eyes shining.

“It’ll all come back around, don’t worry.”

 

++

 

> _It was like a rumbling that was coming from within the plates of his skull, deep and extreme._
> 
> _The sound was like water in the ears, the pressure of sinking deeper into the ocean serving as a hum against which you could hear your heart beat and any muffled clacks made under the waves. The particular frequency, properly applied, disrupted the pathways laid by the Reaper indoctrination field._
> 
> _Shepard lay with his head inside the modified imaging alcove, and yet he was also on the Citadel. Exploring the Wards in armor with Kaidan and Ashley behind him, the piercing fullness of the Prothean beacon still pushing out from the inside of his mind._
> 
> _There was grass under his feet—rushes on the shore—no, the floor of the Citadel Council Chamber’s Atrium. Saren loomed above him, a Brute before the universe had a name for them. Sovereign’s voice pouring into his mind, whispers crowding around the Prothean data like salt in a wound. No, not in the atrium after all—a park in Vancouver. Kaidan’s city. On his weekly release to walk the park he could normally only see from his house-arrest apartment. The boy he sometimes saw playing down here wasn’t here today. There had been mutterings in the hall when the guard replaced James, rumors that Shepard had been resurrected from the dead and brainwashed as a Cerberus sleeper agent, all of it Shepard heard with his improved hearing…_
> 
> _Cries in the distance he could just barely hear… There was water swirling around his legs. Up to his waist in the Mediterranean, a shirtless boy on the shore yelling at him “I can’t swim! Wait! Come back! Stop staying under for so long, how long can you hold your breath?!” But no, the water was freezing, this wasn’t the Mediterranean… it was Despoina. Leviathan enthrallment pressing against him, addicting him to control with a simple first command: “Breathe.” Warmth again: he was soaking in a hot tub, Kaidan’s eyes golden in the blue light._
> 
> _He couldn’t breathe. Stars shining without the intermediary glimmer of atmosphere, he was standing on a curtain of stars. No, floating, drifting without air. That wasn’t right either, his feet were planted, the stars were outside the window. The Catalyst was at his side. The Catalyst was in his mind. It found his wobbling legs and pushed him to rise, pushed him to choose… He found his balance, the galaxy of stars out the window, Kaidan’s reflection on the glass. “People dancing in the streets, hugging and crying!”_
> 
> _Tears ran from his eyes. No, they were drops of rain, watching Kaidan rush to him as he stumbled out of his diving mech. Bright lights in real tears, his body pushing against the feeling of the Illusive Man’s hand wrapped around his mind. The lights of the Citadel—the Citadel again!—framing Anderson, making the dark blood seeping from his stomach crimson. Bright light at his back, now. Kaidan’s face glowing, every fleck of blood on his face black. “I love you, too.”_
> 
> _And the machine thrummed, then stopped._

When the sliding bed on the imager carried him out of the enclosed tube, there was Kaidan, sitting at his side, reading on a data-pad. He grinned and helped Shepard sit up.

“You look paler than usual, Ben. Same images as last time?” Kaidan helped him back down to his room. Shepard was silent the whole time. “I thought the process wasn’t supposed to have any… adverse side-effects…” Kaidan said cautiously, once he’d helped Shepard back into bed.

“I don’t think it does,” Shepard smiled, still deep in thought. “It wasn’t bad, wasn’t very different than it usually is.”

“You just seem quieter than usual.”

“Just thinking.”

“Alright.”

“Kaidan,” Shepard asked softly. “What was it like when Aethyta finally found the cure in your head?”

Kaidan looked startled for a moment, then set his data-pad down on the bedside table.

“Umm, we’d been working at it for a while.” He kept his hands busy, fiddling with the pitcher of water on the table, moving the vase of flowers Liara had sent. “I don’t really know that I can describe it, you know?”

“Yeah,” Shepard nodded. “The visions I had of the Reapers when Liara was helping me interpret the Codex always left me a little off balance. Flashes of images, that sort of thing.”

“There was this sort of darkness… like a calm… ocean, or something, at night. And there was all this light, like it was hiding. And Aethyta, she was always trying to find something.” Kaidan let his hand slip from the table, squeezed against his closed fist until his knuckles popped. “…I didn’t know which was down which way was up, I couldn’t see Aethyta, couldn’t see anything. Just felt like I was spinning… out in space or… pulled under an eddy, y’know? Not that I’ve ever been pulled under an eddy but—“

“Kaidan,” Shepard interrupted, gave him a soft smile. “I get it. What then?”

Kaidan returned the smile, stopped wringing his hands.

“I felt pretty sick, I was trying to focus. I heard Aethyta telling me to focus. It was like there was this golden… kinda ball of light. I couldn’t focus on it, it was too bright, it just whited everything out when I tried. But then… it was like I saw a reflection of it. Like the sun set on the water, sorta: almost too bright, but…” He shrugged, shook his head. “Next thing I know, Aethyta’s whooping and hollering, slapping me on the back, going ‘That’s it, kid! We did it, kid!’” He looked up sheepishly at Shepard.

Shepard tangled his fingers in Kaidan’s.

“Thank you.”

Shepard’s hands were as cold as Kaidan’s were warm. Kaidan raised them to his lips and kissed the rippling scars wrapped around Shepard’s knuckles.

“And then,” brown eyes met Shepard’s. Kaidan chuckled, a warm puff against Ben’s palm. “I, uh, got a pretty bad migraine.”

Shepard’s brows furrowed immediately, he touched Kaidan’s face.

“You what?”

“Nah, it’s nothing bad. The interference turned on whatever the cure was Leviathan put in my head. Just came on kinda strong. It really knocked me out.” He leaned his head into Shepard’s touch. “It’s frustrating, actually.”

“How come? Is your head still hurting?”

“Not that, no, it isn’t.” Kaidan closed his eyes, let out an easy breath when Shepard’s thumb traced the starry vein of gray at his temple. “An alien inside my head. Some cosmic switch flipping on? It… it’s one of those moments, y’know? The kind you tell your grandchildren about: the moment we found a cure. It’s Newton and the apple, right?” He hummed, fingers combing through his hair. “…the minute I knew… that I could help you.”

Shepard sat up straight, scooting himself closer to the edge of the bed. He waved off Kaidan’s bleary-eyed attempt to help him reposition, then softly pulled Kaidan’s head down to lay against his chest.

“You’ve helped me every single day since I met you, Kaidan. I wouldn’t be where I am—wouldn’t be who I am—without you in my life.”

“It was the first time I _felt..._ ” Kaidan swallowed. He had come forward to the edge of his seat to lean onto Shepard’s body. “First time I felt like maybe I knew where this was going.”

“This? Us?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he turned his ear to Shepard’s steady heartbeat and closed his eyes. “I told you back at Apollo’s I knew what I wanted. That I was sure. I’ve never doubted that for a second. But when Aethyta… _pulled_ that cure out of my head, I felt like ‘Okay, Kaidan. No more fighting. He doesn’t have to fight anymore. _We_ don’t have to… to fight anymore.’ Felt like the first time I _knew_ we’d make it. Like we were finally allowed.” His eyes rolled beneath his lids. “Or I should have felt that way. It should have been a big moment.”

“Instead: headache, huh?”

Kaidan huffed a laugh.

“Yeah. Exactly. Like a skate to the face. Could barely see straight, much less make any grand observations about what was going on around me. I woke up a couple hours later. Aethyta was already meeting with the doctors, by then.”

Shepard’s hands played over the strong planes of Kaidan’s jaw, rough fingers against the rough stubble: hardcoding. But he said nothing for a long time.

“I don’t remember the name of the man who raised me, when I was very young,” he began at last, “Of all the things I remember from my time on the street, I hardly remember him at all. I know what he tried to make of me, and hearing you talk about your dad, I know all the things he wasn’t. Thinking about him doesn’t make me feel anything, at all. I don’t even remember him enough to know whether I want to be the exact opposite of everything he was, or how much like him I became.” He pressed a kiss into Kaidan’s hair. “I’m glad you know how finding that cure made you feel. Those big moments are great, when you can get them. But none of that matters right now. We’re together. It brought us back together.”

Kaidan breathed deeply, lifting his head. His kissed Shepard, lips lingering until his breathing became heavy.

“I guess we’ll make this moment important, then.”

 

++

 

> _“God is subtle, but he is not cruel.” – Fifth Business_

Shepard limped into his room balanced on Kaidan’s shoulder.

“Dammit, Shepard!” Kaidan grimaced, more of Shepard’s weight on him with every step. “Why’d you have to go and do a stupid thing like that?”

“Was feeling good—no, no, no: bed. Right to the bed,” Shepard spat the words out between winces, hand already reaching for the unruly bed by the window.

“I swear, it’s like you don’t even _want_ to get better!” Kaidan just barely held Shepard up by holding fast to the fabric of his hoodie when the other man’s legs gave out.

“Thought I _was_ better!”

“S’posed to be a tactical genius, Shepard.”

“Everyone makes mistakes?” Shepard panted, regaining his footing.

“And _then_ ,” Kaidan was breathing heavy by now as well, steeling himself for the last few steps to the edge of the bed. “’Oh no, doc, _I_ don’t need a wheelchair! I’m Commander Shepard, _I_ can make it back to my room by myself!’”

“It didn’t hurt this bad until I got to the lift!” Shepard leaned all his weight on Kaidan, who hoisted him forward and against the bed. With a little help, Kaidan pushed his legs up and onto the mattress.

“Nerve damage never does, you ass!”

Shepard wriggled up to lay his head on the pillow, eyes closed and panting, but a relieved smile on his lips.

“Well,” Shepard opened one eye, “At least you were there to catch me.”

“’At least’ hardly,” Kaidan scoffed, pulling off one of Shepard’s shoes and making quick work with the laces on the other. “I’m an old pro at dragging _your_ ass out of your dumb decisions.”

“I love you,” Shepard gave him a wink.

“Yeah,” Kaidan huffed through a grin. “You _better_.”

Shepard managed to grimace through removing his hoodie and his shoes, slipping out of his pants, adjusting the bed so it sat him upright. Meanwhile, by the time the deep ‘V’ of sweat soaked into the front of his white t-shirt had dried, Kaidan had just begun to taper off his reproach.

“Finally get all those damn nanites inside you working to put you together and you have to rush ahead in therapy.”

“What better place to screw-up than a hospital?” Shepard smiled, testing the strain in his back.

“A _biotic charge?_ ” Kaidan shook his head one last time, tugging the sheet over Shepard’s toes before plopping back into the plush bed-side chair. “What were you thinking?”

“That I wanted to get to the end of the track faster.” Shepard shrugged. “Just you wait, by this time tomorrow I’ll be better than ever.”

“My miracle man.”

Kaidan twisted himself in his seat till his legs were draped over one upholstered arm. Brushing an errant lock of hair off his forehead, he inhaled and exhaled a deep breath. A further sigh signaled he had let the issue drop.

“You comfortable, at least?”

Shepard laughed.

“Yeah, doesn’t hurt long as I have support.” Shepard reached behind himself to adjust a pillow resting across his shoulders. “Not sure how much I like spending the rest of the day in bed, but that’s what I get.”

“You never used to mind spending the day in bed,” Kaidan quirked an eyebrow, “At least not during shore leave…”

Shepard’s eyes got wide, pressing his lips together.

“I suppose I wouldn’t mind it so much if my bedrest came with certain… amenities.”

Kaidan laughed when Shepard laughed, but watched Shepard’s lips more closely than he had been.

“Worst part is,” Shepard scratched at the stubble on his face, grimacing at the feeling. “I was going to shave my face today, this is starting to get a little long for me.” He cast a sly look at Kaidan, “Could you… get me the basin, a razor?”

Kaidan almost rolled his eyes, but reserved all his incredulity for a straight glare, one brow raised.

“Seriously? _Now_?”

Shepard scratched at his face all the more ardently.

“Just… _ugh_.”

This time, Kaidan did roll his eyes, but in a few moments had collected a razor and a basin that Nurse Lakely—and later, Kaidan—had used while Shepard was still bedridden to keep his face shaved. Since that time, most of the scars on his face had faded, except for a few bright orange gashes on either cheek, so the need to stay so clean-shaven had diminished as well.

“Hang on,” Shepard said when Kaidan moved to place the basin of water next to him on the bed. He slid his arms into his shirt with a grimace. “I want to get this shirt off, it’s sweaty and starting to get cold.” Kaidan gulped and helped him pull the shirt off the rest of the way, eyes lingering on Shepard’s chest before handing him the razor, the soap, and a towel.

When Kaidan grinned to himself and turned back toward the window, Shepard spent a lingering moment staring at his ass in the sweatpants he’d worn to Shepard’s PT that morning. Morning light was streaming through the large window, and Kaidan stretched while he looked out, arms raised and tilting to one side. Shepard worked up a lather. Kaidan tilted to the other side, exhaling into the stretch.

He looked over his shoulder, and Shepard was watching, haphazardly smearing the shaving soap onto his face. Kaidan bit his lip with a smile.

“Yeah…” he cleared his throat. “Pretty sweaty.”

He brushed one finger over his upper lip, strolled casually over to the coat rack by the door to remove his hoodie, hang it on a hook. He locked the door. Shepard dipped the razor into the warm water, face full of white foam while Kaidan crossed the room back to the window.

“Uh,” Shepard swallowed. “Have you gotten that anomaly checked out again? Whatever Leviathan talked about with your head?”

The seemed to startle Kaidan out of a stupor and he cleared his throat.

“Wha? Oh. Umm.” He rubbed his hands on the flank of his sweats. “No. It’s not anything, for now.”

Shepard watched his hands, but then looked back up with a blink, brows furrowed.

“I guess I’m worried about you a little bit.” He felt for one scar with his thumb, placed the blade of the razor just beneath it, scraped a careful patch down to his jaw.

Kaidan smiled, bit his lip again.

“Yeah, I…” he shook his head. “I’m not thinking about it right now. It might not ever be anything. We know it’s not,” he winced when Shepard winced, almost digging into his face with the razor, “a control thing or anything. Doc says it’s probably been there since before I met Leviathan.”

“You’ve been thinking about me, I know.” Shepard winced again, pressed a finger to a clear patch of skin and the inspected the tip for blood. Satisfied, he traced the razor up his neck, pulling his skin taut. “I worry about you, too. Just because _I’m_ an idiot, trying to charge before I figure out how to run, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t… get the help you need.”

“Ben,” Kaidan stepped close to the bed, hand reaching for Shepard’s chest before he let it down on the bed sheet instead. “We’ve got plenty of time. We’re going to do plenty of worrying about each other.” He pressed even closer, Shepard stopped his razor mid-stroke. Kaidan sighed, his smile was warm when he touched Shepard’s chest. “Whatever is going on or isn’t going on, I’m going to take it one day at a time. Okay?”

“…okay.” Shepard couldn’t take his eyes away as he began shaving again. He didn’t even feel it when a trickle of red appeared beneath a tiny scar on his chin, becoming creamy pink as it dripped down into the excess of foam on his neck.

Kaidan laughed.

“Shepard, you’re gonna slash your face up even more! Here,” He held out his hand, and though he rolled his eyes, Ben gave him the razor. “I’ve gotten pretty used to this.” He swirled the razor around the water while he staunched the bleeding with the towel.

“I feel bad having you do this,” Shepard said, Kaidan’s face now pushed very close to his, resuming in more precise strokes. “If I thought I was this bad without a mirror I would’ve saved it for another day.”

“I think,” Kaidan tilted Shepard’s head to one side, getting foam on his fingers, “you knew exactly what you were doing.”

“Hey!” Ben chuckled, turned his face back in protest. Kaidan was ready, brushing the foam on his thumb onto the tip of Ben’s nose.

“Might as well fess up,” he teased. When his thumb lingered for a moment, Shepard tipped his head back, pressed his lips to the pad of Kaidan’s thumb, took it into his mouth.

“Bleh!” he exclaimed. “Soap!” That made Kaidan laugh. “That was way hotter when you did it with hot sauce.”

“Commander,” Kaidan leaned closer, pressing his body into the edge of the mattress. Shepard’s chest heaved with a deep breath when Kaidan’s eyes locked with his, the rough feel of the blade slowly scraping down his face. “Are you flirting with me?”

“If you have to ask…” Shepard grinned. Kaidan stood back, bit his lip for a moment, then moved the basin off the bed.

“I, uh,” he was chuckling so much he almost couldn’t spit it out. “There’s a couple spots I can’t reach from this angle…” He put the handle of the razor between his teeth, then hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his pants. He slid the baggy sweat pants down his legs, and Shepard watched them go, then became fixated on Kaidan’s underwear.

Shepard tried to sit up, but grunted as his aching body pulled him back to the mass of pillows keeping him upright. Kaidan tutted him, a glimmer in his eye.  He brandished the razor again.

“Just sit still,” he growled, voice low. In another moment, he had lifted one leg up onto the bed, then climbed the rest of the way up, straddling Shepard’s waist, just barely squeezing Ben between his thighs. “I’ll be so gentle…”

Ben’s eyes were wide when Kaidan leaned close, carefully removed what remained of the shaving foam. He was breathing in short bursts, and though his body protested the effort, he pushed his hips up, and Kaidan was hard, leaning against his stomach. His hand were on Kaidan’s hips, now.

Kaidan smiled, mouth so close to Ben’s they were sharing the same breath. He felt Kaidan’s tongue against his lips first, then they pressed together, a deep, hungry kiss that made Shepard moan.

His hands were sliding up beneath Kaidan’s shirt, quivering when Kaidan’s chest heaved, his lover pushing down against his body. Kaidan let the razor clink into the basin, eyes shut tight while he sucked gently on Ben’s lip.

By the time Ben was running his tongue along the sweat-dotted pulse point on Kaidan’s throat, he was grinding himself against Shepard’s bare body. Ben breathed hard against the wet flesh, hands clawing at Kaidan’s ass, pulling him up. Almost reluctantly, Kaidan rose up, and Shepard’s hands on his ass pulled his crotch to Ben’s face.

Fingers through Ben’s hair, the warmth of a wet tongue soaking through the cotton constraining his cock, Kaidan let his head fall back. And Ben, pulling down Kaidan’s underwear with one hand, drank in the sight of his lover in the morning light, rigid and loose with pleasure. He curled his tongue around the head before letting his lips kiss down to Kaidan’s base, leaving a wet trail. Shepard bent forward, grimacing for a moment as he tweaked his hip…

Kaidan gasped, hunched forward when Shepard took all of him into his mouth, the pressure squeezing on Kaidan’s ass making it plain Shepard meant to swallow him to the base. For a few quivering moments, he thrust carefully into Ben’s throat, before a deep chuckle against the head of his cock filled him with heat, made him thrust harder.

 Ben was looking up at him when he looked down, stretched lips shining and a glimmer in his eye. That did it, and Kaidan leaned forward, fucking Shepard’s mouth down so that his head was pressed hard into the stack of pillows.

When his breaths shortened, sighing Ben’s name with each tenuous exhale, Kaidan pulled back with a shudder. He leaned down at plunged his tongue into Shepard’s mouth. As he sucked on Shepard’s tongue as lovingly as Ben had just sucked his cock, he reached behind him.

His hand slid into Ben’s underwear, found him soft. Ben pulled away from the kiss with a sheepish chuckle.

“I, uh, I guess that some parts of me are… still recovering.” He tried to avert his eyes, but looked up when Kaidan smirked.

“Mmm, I said we have plenty of time, didn’t I?” Kaidan grinned, languidly let his body sit back.

“Hey,” Ben swallowed, licked his lips. “Get back up here!”

Kaidan shook his head slowly. He sat back, dripping against Shepard’s bare stomach, let his ass rest on Shepard’s lap.

“I think I just want to look at you a while,” he breathed, twisting and rocking his hips so that Ben’s eyes closed and his pulse quickened. His fingers dug into Kaidan’s thighs.

It wasn’t long, though, before Kaidan had to bend back down to kiss Shepard again, tucking himself back into the waistband of his briefs. Ben’s arms locked around him with a new strength, as if just trying to get as much contact as possible. And Kaidan consented, slowly lying down prone, half on top of Shepard, half on the bed. Ben pulled away, touching Kaidan’s face.

“I missed this. I missed you.”

“Yeah,” Kaidan breathed, the grin still on his lips. He reached up with the towel, then, and wiped the Shepard’s face clean.

“I feel good today, Kaidan,” Shepard muttered against his lips when Kaidan pulled him close, tight. “I know tomorrow I might feel worse, and next week I might feel good again, on and on. But I don’t want to miss anything, anymore. Not with you…”

Kaidan smiled, but it was kind, understanding.

“I’m so excited, Ben.” He leaned into the touch when Shepard ran his fingers through Kaidan’s hair, a fingertip against Kaidan’s amp port and the place Leviathan had touched. “And wherever we end, that’s our happy ending. Same as before.”

“Not quite the same as before,” Shepard grinned. “So much more time. So much more.”

++

Shepard hardly seemed as if he needed to remain at the hospital any longer, and it was only as a favor to a worried Admiral Hackett that he remained, and soon, Miranda’s confidence in her work would lead her to insist he be released.

But meanwhile, Shepard and Kaidan had continued to read together. The weather was fine—both men only needed a hoodie—and they sat against the memorial tree in front of the hospital, Shepard with his eyes closed, dozing in Kaidan’s arms while the other man read.

> _“You have paid such a price, and you look like a man full of secrets--grim-mouthed and buttoned-up and hard-eyed and cruel, because you are cruel to yourself. It has done you good to tell what you know; you look much more human already. A little shaky this morning because you are so unused to being without the pressure of all your secrets, but you will feel better quite soon.”_

Kaidan let out a little huff, and Shepard stirred.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” Kaidan smiled. “My dad used to call me a ‘hard-eyed kid.’ Mostly as a, y’know, a term-of-endearment type thing. But I think maybe a little seriously, too.”

“He worried about you.”

“Did he ever,” Kaidan laughed. “Y’know, I think when I read this book the first time, when I was a kid, I thought the author must’ve gotten that phrase from my dad? Or like it was just this thing everybody said or something.”

“Oh?”

“Maybe it’s because he was always rushing to defend me when the teachers at my schools were getting weird about my biotics, but he was always larger than life, to me. Yeah. Just like everybody and me were co-stars in his vid.”

“Come on!” Shepard guffawed.

“I mean, sure. Everybody sorta sees themselves as the star in their life, right? You build up this image of your father in your mind. My dad, heh,” Kaidan hid his blush and the smile on his face in the fabric of the hood. “He sure as hell never made ‘major’ with the Alliance. But when it’s your dad—I mean, long as you don’t hate him, right?—there’s always something you’re trying to live up to. Being as kind as him or being as warm. As strong. Hell, living to be as _old_ , at least, I don’t know.”

“What do you think about that now?” Ben turned Kaidan’s hand over in his, ran his thumb over the clean white scar across Kaidan’s palm. “How do you learn to measure up?”

“I guess you never do,” Kaidan swallowed and laughed. “It’s a good way to feel like you’re the bit-player in a great man’s life. At least it was for me. Some dads… really try to make their kids into window dressing, don’t they? But my dad never did. Then one day he’s gone and you realize that…”

“He was the supporting cast all along?” Shepard smirked.

“Ha! I guess there’s no way around it.” His fingers twitched in Shepard’s hand, Ben’s thumb tickling his palm. “Suddenly you don’t have a dad anymore, you’ve got a myth.”

“A myth, yeah.” Ben kissed and closed Kaidan’s hand around his.

“When I lost you, it killed me: that feeling that, every day, I was gonna lose a little bit more of the details about Ben Shepard. I’d have my stories about our time together,” he shook his head with a smirk, “But pretty soon all those stories have some kinda ‘point’. ‘Shepard was a good man,’ ‘Shepard cared about his crew,’ ‘Shepard was a looker,’” he winked. “And people start forgetting the particulars and just remember the ‘points’. And that’s good. All that’s true. But people are more than that.”

“Mm,” Ben hummed. “Even harder to live up to a legend, then?”

“No, no.” Kaidan shook his head, arched his back until his back made a popping sound, he was yawning when he let his body relax. “I mean, ‘Legendary First Human Spectre Commander Shepard’ is an inspiration to everyone. Ben Shepard is an inspiration to me.”

“…oh.” Ben’s face broke into a wide grin.

“If… I dunno. If Allers wanted to write the story of my life, you could gloss over my dad or write him out totally and it wouldn’t affect the narrative too much. Sure, everybody _knows_ your dad has a big impact     on your life, right? But the particulars don’t matter too much to people. I’m not really saying this the way I want to, hmm… Everybody knows who King Arthur is—broad strokes, anyway—but that doesn’t matter much in the day to day, y’know?”

“Plenty of interpretations on King Arthur, too.”

“Yeah, easy to shuffle around the details and save the big picture. Sucks seeing someone you love so much become so simplified, no matter how ‘amazing’ that simple version is.” He nodded to himself, drew the edges of the hood around his face. “…I wish I could talk to my dad, still.”

“You’re always going to miss him, and you’re always going to love him.” Ben squeezed Kaidan’s hand. “I know that saying that is… a little like what you were saying. It sounds ‘too simple’, but love’s a little like that. Too complicated. So we make it too simple.”

Kaidan swallowed hard, nodded his head. When his face broke out into a little smile, Ben mirrored it.

“It, uh, it helped to get to hear from Anderson one last time…” He looked down at the scar in his palm. “Even if he wasn’t talking… _to_ me, exactly.”

“…In the Echo Shard?”

“Mhm.” Kaidan licked his lips. “Just glad to know someone was with him, in the end. Glad I got to… to _be_ there, sort of.” He rolled his eyes behind closed lids and huffed. “I dunno.”

“I didn’t know that you were close with Anderson,” Shepard said softly.

“Oh, I, uh, I guess I wasn’t. Not like you, I guess. But after the Normandy went down, he would show up at my apartment. First time was a few days after the wake. We talked… we talked a little about you, actually. Maybe a lot about you.” Kaidan rubbed his knuckles over one of his eyes, “Everybody was taking the crash pretty hard. Anderson was the only one who seemed to really understand: the fact that just a few weeks earlier, we had been on top of the world, beat Saren. Saved the Council. Saved the galaxy. Now we were all… survivors.”

Kaidan looked up, the sun streaming through the branches and down on the ruined campus grounds around them. The sounds of demolition and construction outside were muted by the distance, instead offering a quiet tableau of churning change. The layers of the war-torn London pulverized and erased and rolled over, with the two lovers watching from far away.

“I guess Anderson knew something about that, after his Spectre trials.” Shepard brought Kaidan’s attention back to the two of them, a gentle hand on his cheek.

“Um, yeah,” Kaidan kissed Ben’s palm. “First couple times that’s what he talked about. Then I guess he figured maybe something more was bugging me. He knew I felt like I left you behind. Maybe he knew more. Hell, everyone… everyone seemed to,” he chuckled and let his head fall back.

“He had a picture of you,” Shepard smiled.

“He _what?”_

“On his desk, in his Council office.”

“…oh.”

Shepard laughed again.

“I guess maybe you were important to him, too. Didn’t have a picture of _me_.” He poked Kaidan in the ribs.

“There’s gonna be a whole chapter about you in his autobiography, Shepard,” Kaidan said, voice thick with irony.

“Only because I’m sensational,” Shepard sighed lightly, dissolving into a laugh when Kaidan elbowed him. He sobered after a minute and hummed, pressing into Kaidan’s touch.

“Still. It was… good to see him again,” Kaidan concluded. When Shepard said nothing, Kaidan pressed forward quietly. “Are we going to talk about the Echo Shard, Ben?”

Shepard’s body seemed to tense for a moment, but he controlled his breathing.

“Yeah. I just don’t know what there is to say.”

“I think… I don’t think I’ve ever just talked about how weird it was. Overwhelming.” A dried leaf that had been caught in a tangle of branches high above drifted down, and Kaidan’s eyes watched it fall. His voice was a whisper. “Looking through your eyes, Ben. Getting to feel what you felt. An… it _feels_ so much like I was there, in that moment with you. Like those are my memories, too.” He shook his head, “But they’re not. I know I wasn’t there… I know I wasn’t because, if I _had_ been…” He swallowed again, “I dunno. I know I wasn’t there because I saw you lying in that bed when I got back. Saw the look on your face. I know because I’ve got my own memories on the Normandy, alone. I can’t forget those memories, either.”

Shepard closed his eyes. Fingers combing through the brittle grass: hardcoding. He gingerly took the fallen, browned leaf in his hand, pressed against the veins with his thumb until it cracked. He closed a palm around it, powdering it into papery bits that crumbled from his fist until the crumpled skeleton of the leaf was all that remained.

“…they _are_ your memories, now, Kaidan,” he said at last. “I wish you could’ve been with me on the Citadel, but I had to see you safe. But now, nobody else is going to understand what happened the way you do. So…” The wind caught the tangled remnant. “They’re our memories. We’re together now. You said when I died, you were afraid you’d lose pieces of me in your memory over time. I choose to remember being with you, your hand on mine helping me grip that gun.” When Kaidan leaned forward to brush the dirt from Ben’s palm, Shepard breathed into his ear. “What’s even more important, you were there when I woke up. That’s all I ever need, Kaidan. They’re going to write my story however they want. But that’s all I ever need: you came back to me.”

Kaidan’s hand in Shepard’s, the scarred scribbles on Ben’s skin making it rough even after so long without a gun in his hand—a thousand little scars from a thousand little fractures in his childhood, like streaks of stars on his fingers. He turned Kaidan’s hand over, the current of the white scar laid across the lines of his palm.

“Thinking about my father—and about Anderson—“ Kaidan cleared his throat, watched Shepard’s chest rise and fall, instead of his face. “There was something else Anderson said to you, and something I saw in the Echo Shard.”

“Oh?” Ben said, not seeming to understand.

“’You’d make a great dad,’” Kaidan said carefully. “That’s what Anderson said to you. Something about how proud your kids would be telling people their dad was Commander Shepard.” He chuckled to himself. “And… I saw a memory of you telling me something when I was asleep. Thinking about the future. About family?”

“You… you saw that, huh?” Ben smiled, sinking down into himself a bit. “I was think about that… after Anderson was gone. I was waiting. Thought about that night, telling you that in bed. There were so many things I wanted to say to you, things I should have said to you. But I waited till the war was over.”

The scorched earth around the hospital campus was little more than muddy puddles ringed in blackened grass. In Shepard’s hospital room, Kaidan’s dress blues waited for a formal occasion he was to appear at that evening. The Citadel still glowed overhead, and Dr. Chakwas’ team was still treating untold dignitaries for indoctrination symptoms, even as the Council was just re-establishing connection with a few outer survey worlds freed from Leviathan’s control. There was a dead Reaper in the Thames. Many of the picture-films of lost loved-ones tacked to the tree had faded in the sunlight.

“War’s over,” Kaidan breathed.

“Still, ‘people going through hell in a million ways,’” Shepard recited quietly. He added, before Kaidan could speak up, “But now they’ve got hope, at least.”

“ _You_ did that.”

Shepard seemed not to have heard.

“What I said to you that night,” he shifted in Kaidan’s arms. “I meant that. There are things that feel… possible, when you’re with me.”

Kaidan didn’t try to disguise the grin that lit up his face.

“Good thing you’re stuck with me, Shepard.” He held Shepard tighter when a thin shiver ran through Ben’s body. There was a moment of laughter from the two until Shepard needed to shift of his bad hip and experimented with a few different ways of settling into Kaidan before eventually leaning back against the tree beside him, head on his shoulder. Kaidan continued, drawing Shepard even closer, “Y’know, thinking about my dad, it’s funny: I’ve done a _lot_ in my life my dad never imagined. But you idolize a man so much, you start to think that the stuff you’ve done _must_ not be as important as what he did.” He scrunched up his face, “I mean, I made ‘major’, led a black ops team. But. Guess I still don’t feel like half the man he was, sometimes.” He nudged Shepard with a sly look, “Can’t imagine how I’d feel if my dad had _saved the galaxy_.”

Shepard actually laughed.

“They won’t _have_ to save the galaxy!” He let his head lean to one side, “I’m sure there’ll be plenty of things the world needs from them. Different things than for _us_.” He took Kaidan’s hand. “Different world, different rules. Not easier. Just different.”

Kaidan gazed at his lover’s face.

“You _would_ be a good dad, Ben.”

Shepard only tucked his chin to his chest, allowing himself a little smile.

“And I’m sorry I never got to meet your father,” he met Kaidan’s gaze. “But I’ve never met a man with more integrity. More honor. More love than you, Kaidan.”

Kaidan kissed him, then. The shade and the sun and sounds of the distant water, dry leaves and the cold earth underneath them beneath Shepard’s fingertips—now raised up to clutch Kaidan by the front of his shirt, pulling him closer. Hardcoding.

Kaidan was smiling when their lips parted. Only enough breath left for a whisper:

“We’re gonna be alright.”

 

++

 

The ribbon of clouded blue bathed the Presidium in a perpetual afternoon, but it was nearly time for the brief, six hour night cycle to begin. An illusion of day and night gave the dignitaries and high-profile merchants still scuttling back into their shops and offices a sense of the passing of time, the rebuilding of their homes. Closing shop just in time for the holographic sky to slowly ripple from clouds to stars helped convince everyone that it was time to rest. Another calendar day had come and gone. Things were better than they were yesterday.

In a newly commissioned Presidium park, a 15 meter-tall sculpture of Benjamin Shepard carved from stone loomed on a plinth rising from one of the lakes. A gold placard told, in a brief 40 lines, the importance of Commander Shepard, flanked by carvings of the Normandy SR-2. The figure was on one knee, and though he was in some semblance of armor, no weapons were in his hands or holstered at his back. Instead, his left fist was raised, and clenched within was a butterflied stone cord fitted with knots, one for each of the ‘worlds’ saved. Supposedly, each knot was unique. His right palm was stretched open before him, and water poured forth from it: classical volus iconography for the conquering hero.

Kaidan and Shepard had been present in dress uniforms for the unveiling, dedication, and ribbon-cutting. But they had come back tonight, in plain clothes, to look again. Shepard had insisted on not making a big deal out of it, so they ate at the Krogan noodle house down the way from their apartment before taking a cab to the Presidium.

People going from the Presidium to the Wards often reported a sense of lost time—plunging from the loping, committed calm of the ring into the never-quiet, neon coral reef of the Ward arms. There was no gentle melding of night to day.

When the night cycle on the Citadel began, the effect was similarly jarring. On most Council worlds, ‘day’ was said to begin and end with the appearance of that world’s sun piercing the horizon: an exact moment. Obviously though, the gradual change in light was the expected transition between night and day. In order to approximate this, the Presidium lights dimmed slowly over the hour preceding the start of the night-cycle, and a series of one to five chimes indicated how close to night it was. At five chimes, the holographic sky would turn from blue sky to starry night sky, and the lights would be cut dramatically. One segment at a time, the Presidium would snap to darkness.

As it so happened, the Shepard sculpture was placed in the first segment of the Presidium to go dark each night, and supposedly the spotlights the artist had installed to illuminate it made it truly breathtaking.

“We could be lying on the couch right now,” Ben said, frowning at the sculpture. “It _better_ be breathtaking.”

He and Kaidan lay in the park a little ways from the sculpture. Ben sat on the grass, legs crossed, and Kaidan lay stretched out with his head in Ben’s lap.

“Nah! We had to see it!” Kaidan laughed, checking the time on his omni-tool. “Hard to get a good look at it during the ceremony with all those people shaking my hand.”

“I couldn’t even pose for it,” Shepard chuckled. “Pin Marlok had me assume the stance so she could get a few sketches, but it killed my hip. She said she would just use the Shepard VI instead.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I wish!” He laughed. “She was pretty nasty about it, too. Guess it was good to just be treated like a person for a while.”

“Well, you’re a legend, officially, now!” Kaidan laughed. He adopted a very serious tone, tipped his head back against Shepard’s belly to look up at his face. “Generations are gonna look at this _magnificent_ sculpture and wonder ‘who was this man? What was he like?’”

“They can read my logs,” Shepard smiled, dryly. “They can watch the vids.”

“Boring,” Kaidan thumped his head into Shepard’s sternum. He continued his overwrought affect, “They’ll ask themselves ‘who was he, _really?’_ And kids will learn about you in school—and the school’ll be named after you, right?—and they’ll go home and say ‘Mommy, tell me a story about the Shepard!’ And then before you know it, _everybody_ will be telling stories about you!”

“You mean _other_ than the stories they’re supposedly telling about me at school?” Shepard tipped his head, smiled down into Kaidan’s face. Kaidan grinned back up at him.

“Oh no. That’s where they learn the boring stuff: _what_ happened, and _what_ you were!” He chuckled, barely maintaining his ‘very impressive’ voice. “Those are just all the ‘facts’. A stories gotta tell you all about _how_ it happened and _why_! Facts are facts, but a story’s gotta have a beginning and an ending. That’s what the kids are gonna want!” He dissolved into a fit of laughter when Shepard poked him in the ribs.

“Guess I should remember that next time I’m telling a story, huh?” Shepard quirked an eyebrow sarcastically.

“Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of practice.” He leaned up on his elbows and Shepard leaned down, and they kissed.

Five gentle chimes sounded, the signal that the night cycle was beginning. The panel of holographic sky above the sculpture snapped to stars, the whole segment of the Presidium ring darkening with it. At once, the lights which surrounded the Shepard statue shone upon it, casting Ben’s image in sharp relief, the glittering placard on the base receiving a special spotlight.

Kaidan and Shepard ‘ooed’ in polite, though unobserved, appreciation. Almost immediately, though, Shepard was smiling up at the fake stars, a bit dimmer now for all the spotlights glaring up from the statue’s base, almost as if they shone up through the holographic sky and out of the Citadel and into the universe.

Outside the Citadel, the Earth had spun the Atlantic Hemisphere away from the sun, as well, and the planet was projecting its own nebula of light into space. The millions of lights as constellations locked together and outlined the dark spaces between them: the Great Horn of Africa here, the Iberian Peninsula there, and the frame of the Mediterranean.

 “I’m going to remember this moment for a long time,” Kaidan said softly. The night cycle continued to roll up the inverted Presidium horizon, one segment of the ring at a time going dark, up and away from where Kaidan and Shepard lay.

“Why’s that?” Shepard spoke in a low voice.

“I don’t know,” Kaidan chuckled to himself. “I just know I will.”

“Yeah.” Ben let his fingers sink into the plush of Kaidan’s sweatshirt.

The false sky was meant to emulate Earth’s own night sky, though it was practically unrecognizable. The VI system which created the image used data of relative star positions from accurate Council astronomical charts, with no accounting for time.

Many of the familiar constellations were distorted. Many of the brightest stars were missing: the VI removing those stars which had died, but whose light still shown lightyears away on Earth. To peer into the fake sky was to look into a sky that would not be seen on Earth for 75,000 years. But it gave no sense of prescience, because, of course, the truth was that looking into the night on Earth was watching the past. It was configurations of stars bound together, named after classical myths, to map a night sky that was an image of an even more ancient age.

The darkness which the galaxy twisted itself around, and the void between stars, were all glutted with old light; like waves that build up on the shore. And all that old light shone off the very same waves and back into the night, and softer.

“Will you take me home to Vancouver, this weekend?”

“Of course. It’ll be good to go home.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

The Presidium segment on the horizon to their backs darkened as the night-cycle rounded the corner. They watched the glow in each other’s eyes at the end of the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has been such an incredible journey for me, both in the writing, and in finding a community of incredible readers. I've been so honored to get to know you, to have your support, and to share just a little something about this romance that means so much to me. I don't know what else to say, other than that I feel so lucky to have had your time, and I'm deeply grateful for everything you've all done for me. I'll never not respond to comments on this, and you mean the world to me. 
> 
> Thank you,  
> -bagog

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I guess this story means a lot to me? I appreciate sharing it with you.


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